MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EBRD, TaiwanICDF Lending $4m to Moldovan Express Leasing

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a UK-based multilateral development institution, recently announced it will loan USD 4 million to Express Leasing and Microcredit, a non-bank financial institution in Moldova that has been owned by US-based private equity firm NCH Capital Group since 2009. The Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund, an instrument of the government of Taiwan, is providing one quarter of the loan funds.

Express serves small businesses from nine branch locations. The institution does not report financial data to the US-based Microfinance Information Exchange or via other standard channels.

NCH Capital was founded in 1993 to invest in the countries that had been part of the Soviet Union. As of 2017, it manages USD 3 billion from offices in Brazil, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the Western Balkans as well as its headquarters in New York City.

EBRD was founded in 1991 and has 65 shareholding countries as of 2017. The bank, which focuses on “the promotion of private and entrepreneurial initiative,” invested EUR 9.4 billion (USD 10.1 billion) in companies in 30 countries during 2016.

By Sascha Strobl, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources:

EBRD press release:
http://www.ebrd.com/news/2017/ebrd-provides-us-4-million-loan-to-moldovas-express-leasing-.html

EBRD:
http://www.ebrd.com/

TaiwanICDF
http://www.icdf.org.tw/

Express Leasing:
http://www.expressleasing.md

NCH Capital:
http://www.nchcapital.com

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