IFC finances City Bank

Sheikh Mahammad Maroof, Additional Managing Director of City Bank, and Nuzhat Anwar, IFC Senior Country Officer in Bangladesh, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organization.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing a loan of up to $30 million to City Bank, a leading private commercial bank in Bangladesh, to financing small and medium enterprises and corporate companies affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The financing package is part of IFC’s $8 billion global COVID-19 fast-track financing facility, which aims to help companies stay in business. This investment comes under the Working Capital Solutions (WCS) program of the COVID-19 response envelope, which provides $2 billion globally to emerging-market banks. This allows them to extend credit so firms can cover expenses and pay their employees, said a statement.

‘IFC played a strong role in strengthening the foreign currency financing ability and offshore banking business of City Bank,’ said Mr. Sheikh Mohammad Maroof, Additional Managing Director of City Bank.

‘We believe that the COVID-19 WCS fund has further strengthened our ability to meet our customers’ foreign currency financing requirements in this pandemic where we have experienced contraction in foreign currency liquidity outside Bangladesh.’