Impact Stories

CHALLENGE The Kyrgyz banking sector has faced significant credit, funding, and liquidity risks since the 2008/2009 global crisis. Moreover, the April 2010 political crisis and the June 2010 violence had resulted in massive deposit outflows in the banking system ($240 million was withdrawn in a month). In response to the crisis, the National Bank of Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) took measures to preserve financial stability. The NBKR took seven banks (accounting for 45 percent of the system’s assets) under temporary administration, imposed direct supervision on 10 banks, and issued instructions to...

CHALLENGE After the protracted civil war ended in 2003, Liberia needed to rebuild the financial sector from the basics. The financial sector was narrow and underdeveloped, characterized by limited financial instruments, a low level of financial intermediation, and limited trust among the public. A number of systemic and institutional constraints had led to limited availability of financing for productive investment, particularly for SMEs, as well as rural-based agricultural industries. These constraints included a high volume of nonperforming loans (40 percent in 2006), ineffective judicial...

Following the FSAP 2010 recommendations, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) approached FIRST for help with developing a tool for strengthening the risk assessment and management framework for individual banks and the whole financial system. FIRST funded TA worth $180,000 to provide the CBE with a customized Financial Projection Model (FPM) , a tool that helps bank supervisors implement dynamic stress tests, identify and monitor problem banks, assess systemic vulnerability, and evaluate a bank's value for liquidation or resolution options, among other tasks. The TA was carried out between January...

Overview The Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP) in Rwanda (Phase I and II projects) was supported by the Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening (FIRST) Initiative, a multi-donor grant facility that provides technical assistance to promote financial sector strengthening. The government mobilized more than US$30 million from other development partners and together with the World Bank-financed Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project (CEDP), more than 100 actions in banking, pensions, capital markets, payments system, and accounting and auditing have been implemented to...