The conference on Lending Standards organized by National Bank of Georgia was held on January 31, in the Tbilisi Marriott Hotel. Representatives of the National Bank of Georgia, commercial banks, International Monetary Fund and other International Financial institutions, Ministries of Finance and Economics, large audit firms and economic experts took part in the conference. Representatives of the rating agency “Standards and Poor’s” and International Financial Corporation have presented their views to conference participants.

Giorgi Kadagidze stated before the conference -”In recent years, it has been repeatedly confirmed that Georgian banking sector is one of the most sustainable and steadily developing sphere. This is also noted in the findings of international financial and rating companies. It is important that the banks, along with development and growth process pay more attention to the proper and sound management of the lending process. It is important and necessary that the banks along with assessing the risks, optimally match the disbursed loan amount and payment terms to the business-model presented by the borrower, take into account the cyclicality of the business and cash flow structure. The result of proper handling of this process will be on one side high quality of the customers’ interests protection and on the other side a healthy credit portfolio. By organizing today’s conference we gave chance to Georgian commercial banks to learn about lending international standards and share best practice”.

The goal of the conference was sharing of different financial sectors representatives’ visions on the lending standards. One of the discussion issues on the meeting were corporative and single product coefficients, their historical and current levels and impact on the credit quality. Particular attention was paid to borrowers’ foreign exchange and interest risks.