Novosibirsk, July 19, 2007
— IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, recently signed an agreement with key partners to develop standard procedures for servicing loans and disclosing and exchanging data in Russia’s residential mortgage finance industry. The effort will be conducted by IFC in partnership with the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending, GPB-Mortgage Bank, and the Association of Mortgage Companies of Russia.
The agreement was signed within the framework of the First All-Russian IT Conference on the automation of the mortgage industry, held in Novosibirsk. To ensure broad industry cooperation and transparency in development of the standards, the institutions will establish a working group comprised of all major residential mortgage industry participants, primarily lenders and servicing agents.
“The introduction of standards for mortgage loan servicing and data exchange will raise the efficiency and scalability of the industry in a sustainable manner,” said Andrey Milyutin, Manager for the project at IFC. “This will increase reliability and functionality in the refinancing and servicing of mortgage portfolios, creating more investment opportunities for all industry participants. We look forward to working with our partners to develop and introduce these standard practices in Russia.”
The IFC Russia Primary Mortgage Market Development Project is partly funded by the governments of the Netherlands and Switzerland.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, fosters sustainable economic growth in developing countries by financing private sector investment, mobilizing capital in the international financial markets, and providing advisory services to businesses and governments. IFC’s vision is that poor people have the opportunity to escape poverty and improve their lives. In FY06, IFC committed $8.3 billion, including syndications, to 284 investments in 66 developing countries. For more information, please visit
www.ifc.org
.
About SECO
The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs is the Swiss Confederation's competence center for all the core issues related to economic policy. Its aim is to create basic regulatory and economic policy conditions to enable business to flourish and benefit all. SECO also represents Switzerland in the large multilateral trade organizations and international negotiations, and is involved in efforts to reduce poverty and help developing countries with transition economies build sustainable democratic societies and viable market economies. Each year, Switzerland spends about 1.9 billion francs on development cooperation and transition assistance to countries.
About the Agency for International Business and Cooperation
The Agency for International Business and Cooperation is part of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. It promotes and encourages international business and cooperation. As a state agency and a partner to both private and public sector organizations, the agency aims to help them achieve success in their international operations.
About the Association of Mortgage Companies
AMC is a noncommercial organization of service agents in Russia. It was founded to coordinate its members’ activities and represent their interests to the Russian mortgage industry. The association is active in developing the national mortgage market and securitization practices, based on unified standards of mortgage loan origination, refinancing, and servicing procedures.
About the Specialized Mortgage Agent GPB-Mortgage
GPB-Mortgage is the former mortgage bank AKB Sovfintrade, which is part of the Gazprombank Group. The bank was the first to place a domestic residential mortgage-backed securities issue in Russia, in December 2006. The issue was rated Baa2 by Moody’s Investor Service.
About the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending
The Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending was established by the Russian government in 1997. It was modeled in part after U.S. government-sponsored enterprises, such as the Government National Mortgage Association and the Federal National Mortgage Association. The agency provides nationwide market liquidity by purchasing residential mortgage loans from lending banks. To finance such purchases, it issues corporate bonds and domestic residential mortgage-backed securities, which may be guaranteed in whole or in part by the federal budget. As the leading operator in the secondary market and the basic means of state support for mortgage lending, the agency aims to foster the development of a nationwide common market of long-term housing mortgage loans.
