Dutch bank offers 160m GEL to support Georgia’s ‘de-dollarisation’ process

Dutch development bank FMO is backing Georgia’s drive to ‘de-dollarise’ its economy to improve the stability of the country’s financial sector and encourage the growth of domestic capital markets.

For this reason the FMO allocated a 160 million GEL ($65m) loan with a tenor of five years to Georgia’s leading bank Bank of Georgia.

FMO raised the local currency funding through the public-placement of a GEL-denominated bond listed on the Georgian Stock Exchange. The groundbreaking local currency facility marks the first time ever that FMO has issued a GEL-denominated bond in Georgia.

By arranging this Georgian lari loan to a leading domestic financial institution like Bank of Georgia, we are contributing to the reduction of the economy’s overall dependence on external US dollar funding”, said CIO at FMO Linda Broekhuizen.

On the other hand, CEO of Bank of Georgia Kaka Kiknavelidze said that the Bank of Georgia and FMO had resumed their long-term co-operation and successfully arranged a local currency facility.

We continue to direct our resources at raising GEL-denominated funding for our customers and strengthening our long-term partnerships while developing financial institutions in the process. I would like to congratulate FMO on issuing their first GEL-denominated bond in Georgia and sincerely thank them for choosing Bank of Georgia as their trusted counterparty in the local currency transaction”, he said.