Global Survey of Development Banks

Historically, development banks have
been an important instrument of governments to promote
economic growth by providing credit and a wide range of
advisory and capacity building programs to households, small
and medium enterprises, and even large private corporations,
whose financial needs are not sufficiently served by private
commercial banks or local capital markets. During the
current financial crisis, most development banks in Latin
America, followed by Asia, Africa, and Europe, have assumed
a countercyclical role by scaling up their lending
operations exactly when private banks experienced temporary
difficulties in granting credit to the private sector.
Despite the importance of development banks during crisis
and non-crisis periods, little is known about them. This
survey examines how development banks operate, what their
policy mandates are, what financial services they offer,
which type of clients they target, how they are regulated
and supervised, what business models they have adopted, what
governance framework they have, and what challenges they
face. It also examines the countercyclical role played by
development banks during the recent financial crisis. This
survey is based on new data that have been collected from 90
national development banks in 61 countries.