European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - EBRD
Categories: Banking, International
Quick history lesson: from the end of World War II until roughly the late 1980s, Eastern Europe was under the control of Soviet rule as puppet states...meaning that when the Russians said dance, the Eastern European countries quickly kicked up their ballalaikas. Then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. In 1991, the communist government of the U.S.S.R. collapsed, effectively ending the more than 40 years of Soviet domination in the region.
Decades of communist rule did a number on the economies of the countries in the region. So, to help them transition to a more market-oriented situation, the EBRD was born.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was created in the same year the U.S.S.R. collapsed (1991) as a conduit for aid to the newly emerging countries of the former Soviet bloc. Since then, the mission of the publicly-owned EBRD has evolved. Still, it continues to focus on investment in emerging countries in the European orbit, both in Central and Eastern Europe and in the adjacent regions of Asia.