Press Room
- Grand Opening in Democratic Republic of Congo
- Harry Turner Named CEO of Opportunity International Network Office
- Micro Ensure eyes higher premiums with Malayan, Grepalife alliance
- Farm aid from space
- Melinda Gates in Davos: Lessons from Africa
- Planting seeds to outgrow poverty
- Opportunity Bank of Malawi Featured by Millenium Villages
- IFC Helps Russian Microfinance Institution FORUS Bank
- Congressional Delegation Visits Opportunity International Microfinance Bank in Kigali, Rwanda
- The Global Food Crisis
- Indian farmers to insure themselves against climate change crop failure
- Rwanda: UOB’s Loan Portfolio Grows to $5.2 Million
- Putting Ghana’s Informal Sector in Business
- Background and Fact Sheet: March 2009
- Omidyar Network Grants $4.5 Million to Opportunity International
- Opportunity Joins Campaign for Client Protection
- The Micro Insurance Agency becomes MicroEnsure
- Opportunity International’s Micro Insurance Agency to Develop Life, Health and Crop Insurance
- Microschools get top marks
- John Deere Foundation and Opportunity International Join to Fight Hunger
- Gates Foundation gives $2.2M for banks in Africa
- Farmers benefit from electronic money transfer
- 500,000 milestone achieved in the Philippines
- New bank branch opens in Malawi
Network Press Room
IFC Helps Russian Microfinance Institution FORUS Bank
Microfinance Focus, October 24th, 2009
World Bank investment arm IFC is helping FORUS Bank, a regional microfinance institution in Russia, hedge currency and interest rate risks to make its microfinance operations more sustainable, said a press release.
IFC and FORUS Bank have executed currency and interest rate swap transactions for over $13 million, thus hedging the bank’s exposure to United States dollar, euro, and Russian ruble floating interest rates for a large part of its long-term international borrowings. The two institutions signed the International Swaps and Derivatives Master Agreement on September 22—the first swap agreement signed by IFC in Russia.
“I am pleased that FORUS Bank has successfully completed the swap transactions with IFC, allowing us to hedge interest rate and currency risks on about 40 percent of our long-term liabilities,” said Stacie Schrader, Chairman of FORUS Bank’s Board of Directors. “They also will further stabilize the bank’s profitability while the Russian economy moves out of recession.”
The full article is available from Microfinance Focus.
Published in Microfinance Focus on October 24th, 2009
