OREANDA-NEWS. June 23, 2010. PSB and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, signed a USD50 million trade finance guarantee facility agreement, reported the press-centre of PSB.

The agreement was signed in Saint Petersburg. The signing ceremony was attended by Rashad Kaldany, IFC Vice President for Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa, and Snezana Stoiljkovic, IFC Director for Central and Eastern Europe , on behalf of IFC, and Alexander Levkovskiy, President on behalf of PSB.

"We highly appreciate this agreement, which is a starting point for a broad-scale and mutually beneficial cooperation between PSB and IFC", said PSB President Alexander Levkovskiy.

Launched in 2005, IFC Global Trade Finance Program has been supporting international trade in the world's developing markets, as well as facilitating trade between developing countries. Under the Program, IFC provides full or partial trade guarantees and covers trade transaction risks of 180 issuing banks in 72 countries. The Program enables issuing banks to ramp up volumes and extend trade financing maturities on competitive terms.

PSB is a market leader in the international trade finance market in Russia. According to SWIFT, the share of letters of credit issued by PSB in 2009 was 10.63% of the total number of L/Cs issued by Russian financial institutions. PSB has been participating in the EBRD Trade Finance Program since 2004.