OFID extends second trade finance loan to local commercial bank in Turkey

Vienna, Austria, August 6, 2018. OFID – the OPEC Fund for International Development – has signed a US$30 million trade finance term loan agreement with Fibabanka AS of Turkey. The transaction represents OFID’s second trade finance facility extended to the bank, the first of which amounted to €25 million. The agreement was signed by OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish and Gercek Önal, Chief Legal Advisor, and Ahu Heper Dolu, Assistant General Manager, Fibabanka.

Turkey’s total exports and imports represent nearly one-half of the country’s GDP.  The newly-signed agreement will support Fibabanka’s international trade finance activities by providing short-term foreign currency financing to its sub-borrowers. The facility is expected to boost employment generation and living standards, as well as helping promote the optimal use of the country’s resources. It will also help strengthen Turkey’s financial and banking sector by providing much-needed foreign currency funding.

“Fibabanka has been a reliable partner of OFID for the past three years. Under the previous €25 million financing facility, more than 400 sub-borrowers were supported across different sectors, including manufacturing, wholesale, retail trade and agriculture. We are confident that we will be able to reach out to more sub-borrowers under this new US$30 million financing facility,” said OFID Assistant Director General and head of the Private Sector and Trade Finance Operations Department, Tareq Alnassar.

Ömer Mert, Fibabanka’s CEO, said: “We appreciate the continued support of our valuable partner, OFID, who has extended a new US$30 million loan facility with three years’ tenor to replace the previous loan which matured in June 2018. Under this new facility, we will expand our support for our clients’ international trade finance activities.”

Fibabanka is a private bank owned by Fiba Holding AS, offering corporate, commercial, SME, retail and private banking services with its network of 83 branches and nearly 1,700 employees and has reached a total asset size of over US$5.3 billion as of March 2018.

OFID has worked closely with Turkey for nearly four decades, supporting a wide range of projects in the transportation, agriculture and water and sanitation sectors, as well as the financial and banking sectors.  OFID has also extended regional and national grants to Turkey in the areas of agricultural research and emergency aid.