A reliable financing partner

The CEB can provide loans to co-finance projects in any of its 43 member states, in accordance with its mandate. Potential borrowers include governments, regional or local authorities, and public or private financial institutions and banks.  

Flexible financing instruments

In order to maximise the Bank’s contribution to strengthening social cohesion in its member countries, the CEB finances bankable projects through a range of financing instruments that allow flexibility to its borrowers and best address their needs. The CEB Project Loans usually finance predefined individual infrastructure investments while Programme Loans are used for funding multi-project programmes, mostly in support of MSME and municipal investment programmes and often disbursed via the CEB’s commercial bank partners. While the EU Co-financing Facility (ECF) allows for co-financing and/or ex-ante financing of EU-funded investment activities at the country level, the Public Sector Financing Facility (PFF) covers temporary financing gaps in the public sector and facilitates the continuation of investments and reform programmes. Lastly, the Cross-Sectoral Loan Programme (CSL) responds to the public authorities’ social infrastructure needs in several overlapping sectors.

Technical and financial expertise

Highly-specialised, skilled staff with diverse professional and cultural backgrounds are one of the CEB’s strongest assets. The expertise of the Bank’s workforce goes beyond the traditional banking areas of finance, economics and risk management to include project management skills, as well as civil engineering, education, health or housing expertise.  The CEB’s technical, operational and financial knowhow ensures that both the project structure and the financing offer closely match the borrowers’ requirements.  The Bank draws upon its 65 years of experience in the field of social investments coupled with its proven capacity to adapt to the changing environment and evolving borrower needs.  

Ability to actively accompany the clients

The CEB provides enhanced technical and project management support throughout the project cycle - key to enabling the Bank to actively accompany its borrowers.  Donor funds may finance technical assistance for project sponsors, helping them to prepare and implement their projects in accordance with best practices. In this respect, the CEB channels either the external donor funds at its disposal or its own resources through internal instruments.  

Understanding of and responsiveness to clients’ needs

The CEB’s supple and reactive institutional and organisational structure allows it to address the clients’ needs through rapid and proactive turn-around.  Identifying the issues in project preparation and implementation as they arise and finding ways to resolve them in real time is one of the strongest assets that the CEB brings to the projects it finances. This kind of support, going far beyond the provision of simple financing, provides the basis for developing long-standing partnerships between the CEB and its clients. 

Competitive financing conditions

Thanks to its excellent rating (Aaa with Moody's, outlook stable, AAA with Standard & Poor's, outlook stable, AAA with Fitch Ratings, outlook stable and AAA (unsolicited) with Scope Ratings, outlook stable), the CEB raises funds in the international capital markets on very competitive terms.  As a non-profit driven institution, the Bank applies only a limited margin to its loans and charges no fees, thus enabling its borrowers to significantly reduce the cost of the loans they take out to finance social projects. The CEB offers loans in line with the characteristics of the underlying projects and the specific clients’ needs through tailor-made structures and a great deal of flexibility in terms of disbursement amounts, maturity, currency and interest-rate structures or capital and interest payment dates.