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The AgriBank-Stat

The AgriBank-Stat inventory was developed by FAO and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) as a tool to provide key information on some of the most relevant formal financial institutions in developing countries that offer financial services mainly to farmers and farmer households. The inventory includes various types of institutions:

Agricultural development banks
Development banks
Commercial banks
Apex and co-operative central banks

Most of them are members of regional associations:

- African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA)
- Asia Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA)
- Asociacion Latinoamericana de Instituciones Financieras de Desarrollo (ALIDE)
- Near East - North Africa Regional Agricultural Credit Association (NENARACA)


Purpose of AgriBank-Stat

FAO and GTZ wish to provide international donors, decision-makers in financial institutions and researchers with key information on the above mentioned institutions. Even though banking services in many developing countries have been enriched and improved by informal and semiformal microfinance institutions, these formal banks have still a very significant outreach in terms of savings mobilised from farmer households, and loan portfolio to the agricultural sector. They are an essential constituent of the rural financial market. However, information on their relevance, activities and international relations are often not easy to obtain.

Many agricultural development banks failed in the past due to poor performance, low repayment rates, highly subsidised interest rates and dependence on government budget funds. Only few have provided savings facilities and many have "undermined" rural financial development with their injections of cheap money.

In the last decade policy and decision-makers in development banks became aware of these harmful impacts and many of them shifted from directed credit to the financial market approach. AgriBank-Stat enables national and international observers to trace this process and to acknowledge improvements. It might help to identify shortcomings and to formulate steps of necessary reforms.

The inventory focuses on licensed financial institutions which make a significant contribution to satisfying agricultural credit demand nation-wide. Since the relative importance of the agricultural sector in terms of GNP varies from country to country no thresholds of a minimum involvement in agricultural finance have been applied. The database excludes intentionally non-regulated financial institutions. Information on NGOs and other microfinance institutions (MFI) can be accessed through other sources, such as the "Microcredit Summit Campaign Directory" or the "World-wide Inventory of Microfinance Institutions Institutions" compiled by Sustainable Banking with the Poor (SBP).


Selection criteria in detail

AgriBank-Stat includes financial institutions which

a) are involved in rural and agricultural finance
b) have nation-wide relevance
c) are regulated (formal)
d) participate in international associations
e) operate in FAO member countries


Profiles of financial institutions

Each AgriBank-Stat profile tends to provide information on the following topics:

1. Address of headquarters; contact details which change often (phone, FAX or email, contact persons) are given on a separate page
   
2. Date of establishment
   
3. Type of institution
 
- Agricultural development bank: min 75% of the loan portfolio is allocated to the agricultural sector and it is principally government owned.
   
- Development bank: min of 10% and less than 75% of the loan portfolio is allocated to the agricultural sector and the bank is government owned
   
- Commercial bank: min of 10% of the loan portfolio is allocated to the agricultural sector and it is basically private owned. Main funding sources are deposits from the general public or other commercial (non-concessionary) funds.
   
- Apex bank: min of 10% of the loan portfolio is allocated to the agricultural sector and the bank provides financing for other financial institutions. There is (usually) no provision of credit or savings facilities to private individuals.
   
Governing law: banking law or special law (agricultural reform law, co-operative law)
Ownership: Government-owned, shareholder company, etc.
   
4. Membership of international associations: only ADFIAP, ADFIMI, AFRACA, ALIDE, APRACA, ICA, NENARACA, BWTP, Microfinance Network
   
5. Table with key data (see further details) from Annual Reports concerning outreach and loan portfolio; the figures are rounded and on US$ basis. It is aimed to provide general information on the size of the financial institution rather than details about fiscal years, which can be easily obtained by ordering the most recent Annual Report at the given address.
   
6. Main activities and products
   
7. Main sources of funds: funds with at least 10% of equity and liabilities
   
8. International donor support: credit lines from multilateral and bilateral donor agencies; pure technical assistance is excluded
   
9. List of publications: annual reports (whether audited or not is mentioned in brackets), periodical
   
10. Link to homepage, if available


References

The main sources of information have been:
The financial institutions' annual reports (audited or not) and homepages
A questionnaire sent out to 100 members of regional credit associations
Secondary literature:
ADFIAP. Without year. ADFIAP Factbook. Makati
ALIDE & FIRA. 1996. Crédito Agrícola y Banca de Desarrollo. FIRA, Mexico, D.F.
APRACA. 1998. Profiles of APRACA Member Institutions. Bangkok
NENARACA & FAO. 1997. Agricultural Credit Delivery and Administration Systems in the Near East and North Africa Region (Volume I-III), by Mustafa, M.R. & Abdalla, Z.M. (eds.). Amman
ALIDE. 2001. Información financiera de bancos de Desarrollo de America Latina y el Caribe. ALIDE, Lima (CD ROM)

FAO and GTZ acknowledge the contributions of participating institutions. We apologise for any errors or omissions and would appreciate if you notify us for correction and update.


Email:

mail to: Ake.Olofsson@fao.org or thorsten.giehler@gtz.de

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