Sparkasse Bank (DFC-2024-SPARKASSEBANK)

Countries
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Active
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
C
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
Sparkasse Banka
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Finance
  • Industry and Trade
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Guarantee
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 5.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 10.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Jun 1, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the Bank’s website, the project consists of a loan Portfolio Guaranty to promote access to finance for Diaspora linked and for green MSMEs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The MSME financing gap in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is estimated to be $775 million, or 5% of GDP. The Bosnian diaspora, numbering 2 million people and making it one of the largest in the world, contributes significantly through remittances but faces challenges in securing formal bank financing in BiH due to a lack of local credit history and collateral.

The Project will address these challenges by enabling the Borrower to lend to MSMEs that are either owned or otherwise linked to the country’s diaspora communities located outside of BiH.

Early Warning System Project Analysis
For a project with severe or irreversible impacts to local community and natural resources, the Early Warning System Team may conduct a thorough analysis regarding its potential impacts to human and environmental rights.

DFC loan portfolio guaranties to Financial Institutions for the expansion of their small and medium size enterprise loan portfolio (“SME”) are screened as a Financial Intermediary C (FI-C) for environmental and social assessment. These downstream investments are expected to result in minimal adverse environmental and social impacts. Therefore, all those downstream investments have been pre-screened as low risk and further review and consent is not required for these investments.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

$5.0 million, 8-year loan portfolio guaranty.

Financial Intermediary
A financial intermediary is a bank or financial institution that receives funds from a development bank. A financial intermediary then lends these funds to their clients (private actors) in the form of loans, bonds, guarantees and equity shares. Financial intermediaries include insurance, pension and equity funds. The direct financial relationship is between the development bank and the financial intermediary.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Sparkasse Bank d.d. is the 5th largest lender in Bosnia and Herzegovina by assets (5.2% market share) and by loan portfolio (5.6% market share) as of end-2020. The bank offers universal banking services to corporate, SMEs and individual clients through a network of 40 branches and outlets managed by the head office in Sarajevo and served by 530 employees. Sparkasse Bank d.d. is 100% owned by Steiermarkische Bank und Sparkassen AG, Austria.  


Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No contacts available at the time of disclosure.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability

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