The EBRD has signed a risk-sharing agreement with Crédit Agricole Bank for €50 million.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed a risk-sharing agreement for large loans amounting to €50 million with Ukraine's Crédit Agricole Bank on January 6, which will enhance its ability to provide loans to Ukrainian companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This was reported in a release by the EBRD, informed Interfax-Ukraine.

“With the signing of this agreement, Crédit Agricole has become the fourth partner bank of the EBRD in the non-financial, non-recourse risk-sharing program for Ukraine. Previously, UkrSibbank (part of BNP Paribas), Raiffeisen Bank, and Piraeus Bank joined this program,” the release states.

According to the release, under this program, the EBRD will assume the risk for individual loans exceeding the equivalent of €5 million, which Crédit Agricole will provide to corporate clients of all sizes for a total amount of up to €50 million, allowing the Ukrainian bank to use the freed-up capital to expand lending to SMEs.

It is specified that this project complements the existing partnership between the EBRD and Crédit Agricole regarding portfolio risk-sharing, which is already part of the EBRD's Resilience and Livelihoods Guarantee (RLG) program.

In 2022–2023, Crédit Agricole entered into two portfolio risk-sharing agreements with the EBRD, enabling it to provide loans to Ukrainian companies totaling €100 million.

Crédit Agricole Bank is part of the Crédit Agricole group (France).

Background. Earlier, Mind reported that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed an agreement with Ukraine's OTP Bank at the beginning of December to cover up to 50% of the credit risk for new loans from the bank amounting to €200 million.