The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges
Mr. André Küüsvek
Director, EBRD, Local Currency and Capital Markets Development (LC2)
About The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Established: 1991
President: Mr. Sir Suma Chakrabarti
Address: One Exchange Square, London EC2A 2JN,
United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.ebrd.com
Organization Overview
The EBRD is an international financial institution supporting economies from central Europe to central Asia and the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Our focus is on supporting the private sector through financial investments, business services and involvement in high-level policy reform. Our tailored solutions share a consistent goal of fostering the transition to an open market economy, while promoting innovation, growth and transparency.
Developing local capital markets is one of the strategic priorities of the EBRD. Building sustainable regulatory frameworks and developing exchanges as hubs of capital markets is improving access to capital and broadening investment opportunities to both local and foreign investors. This, in turn, will promote economic growth and well-being. Capital markets are unique in their function of mobilising and pricing capital as well as mitigating risks.
The EBRD, through its dedicated LC2 team, is leading various advisory and technical cooperation projects that benefit exchanges, regulators and governments. There are over 70 technical cooperation projects under implementation to support capital market reforms, legal and regulatory frameworks, as well as new products.
Equally importantly, the EBRD is a significant investor in capital market instruments, supporting IPOs and companies issuing either equity or debt instruments. Currently the EBRD is a shareholder in the stock exchanges of Croatia, Romania, Russia and Turkey. The EBRD itself regularly issues bonds, which are often listed either internationally or on local exchanges.
EBRD & FEAS
The EBRD has been a member of FEAS since November 2015 and has been represented at the Board of FEAS since November 2016. There are synergies and shared values between the two institutions with significant overlap in terms of member countries.
Recent EBRD Projects
Examples of recent successful EBRD projects in this area include assisting the authorities, regulators and exchanges to develop:
• a derivatives law in Armenia
• government yield curves in Egypt, Georgia and Tunisia
• covered bond laws in Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic
• a trade link between seven exchanges in the Balkans.
An EBRD equity investment in the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) in Croatia helped the latter to acquire the Ljubljana Stock Exchange in Slovenia. Further support to ZSE has included technical and financial assistance to building a junior market for small and medium-sized enterprises and a crowdfunding platform, Funderbeam SEE.
Future Outlook
In 2018 the EBRD will update its local capital markets development strategy, setting targets for years to come. Cooperation with capital market associations and other international partners will continue to be one of the strategic priorities.
In Europe, the EU Capital Markets Union initiative is expected to have a major positive impact on financial markets and broader economies in terms of enhanced access to finance and movement of money. The EBRD is supporting this initiative as implementer of several advisory projects as well as an investor in specific instruments such as equities and bonds.
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