International Development Programs

We have over 20 years of successfully developing and managing several major commercial banking and banking supervision programs involving the modernization and strengthening of the commercial banking sector in the following countries: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Belize, and Bangladesh. These projects have been financed by the United States government and other international donor organizations, including the World Bank, IMF, IFC, EBRD, and Inter-America Development Bank. Each one was intended to assist the economies of these countries in their historic processes of transition from a centrally planned structure to a market-based economy. The central elements of the reform strategies were to:

• establish the financial reporting and accounting infrastructures for the emergence of a competitive banking system built on an efficient allocation of credit resources;
• improve the legal infrastructure and financial reporting systems for financial sector activity;
• design and implement an administrative and accounting control process that will help achieve the following: compliance with applicable laws and regulations; an effective safeguard for asset values; and reliable financial reporting;
• design and implement a risk-based supervision system; and
• design and implement a strategy for privatizing and reorganizing state-owned banks - one noteworthy accomplishment during one of the recapitalizations efforts was the successful resolution of a privately owned bank that could not be allowed to fail from a political perspective. This particular bank held an enormous systemic risk to the banking sector since it held the deposits of the United States Embassy, Russian Embassy and several ministries of the host country.