Guarantees to Boost Panama’s Small Businesses and Affordable Housing
WASHINGTON, August 14, 2024 – The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), part of World Bank Group Guarantees, has issued a guarantee of $584.6 million to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., HSBC Bank plc, and Standard Chartered Bank for their loans to Banco Nacional de Panamá (BNP), the leading state-owned bank in Panama. The guarantee will cover the risk of Non-Honoring of Financial Obligations by a State-Owned Enterprise for a period of five years.
BNP will use the MIGA-covered financing to provide loans to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and mortgages to lower-income households, contributing to increasing access to credit among these underserved groups. The mortgage loans also include a dedicated gender target of 55 percent toward women or women-led households, to incentivize women as primary signatories of the mortgages, which is expected to contribute to reducing gender inequality in access to credit.
The sectors supported through MSME lending are expected to mirror BNP’s current portfolio, with loans mainly in the agriculture, retail, and tourism sectors, while the residential mortgages will subsidize mortgage interest rates to enable home ownership by Panama’s lower-income population and contribute to closing the existing housing deficit. Furthermore, the project is expected to help reduce Panama’s gender gap in access to credit – only 7 percent of women have a housing loan, compared to 11 percent of men.
"Access to affordable credit is a key driver of sustainable growth in developing countries," said Hiroshi Matano, MIGA Executive Vice President. "Our guarantees provide crucial support to small business owners and women, who are the backbone of the economic engine.”
“Banco Nacional de Panamá is honored to receive the MIGA-covered financing. This transaction will enable us to obtain affordable financing destined to support lower-income mortgages, fulfilling the dream of many Panamanians of owning their own homes, and promoting economic activity through loans to MSMEs in various business segments. MIGA's support is essential to continue our legacy of building an economically competitive, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable Panama,” said Javier Carrizo Esquivel, General Manager of Banco Nacional de Panamá.
The MIGA-backed financing will enable BNP to access longer-term U.S. dollar funding from commercial lenders at a competitive rate. It also will help BNP diversify its sources of funding and improve its asset-liability mismatch.
This is MIGA’s second transaction with BNP after it provided support to the bank in 2020 to raise capital from international commercial banks in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
The project is aligned with Panama’s recently adopted Country Partnership Framework, supporting access to finance and private sector-led job creation. The project is aligned with the mitigation and adaptation and resilience goals of the Paris Agreement.
“We are delighted to have worked closely with MIGA and Banco Nacional de Panamá to reach this milestone that will benefit MSMEs and lower-income households,” said John Meakin, Global Head of Export and Agency Finance at J.P. Morgan Payments. “In today’s dynamic environment, our market-leading expertise and capabilities continue to help build a sustainable future and facilitate equitable access to financing.”
“The team at HSBC is very excited to support Banco Nacional de Panamá in its initiative to facilitate access to home financing throughout Panama,” said Sam Lippitt, HSBC’s Head of Export and Asset Finance for the Americas. “We are delighted to work with MIGA to deliver innovative financing solutions to clients in the region in order to help build a more sustainable economic environment.”
Mustafa Sajjad Hussain, Executive Director, Structured Export Finance, Standard Chartered, said: “This financing to Banco Nacional de Panamá is aligned with the Bank’s commitment to drive capital into sustainable development. The loan will benefit MSMEs and lower-income households, allowing us to make a positive difference across our geographies and communities.”
Panama has a high degree of inequality and informality, hindering financial inclusion among vulnerable groups, such as MSMEs and lower-income households. Despite the overall high level of credit in the economy, MSMEs have a very large finance gap (43 percent of GDP) and report lack of access to credit as the largest constraint for growth. On the other hand, the housing deficit remains large (estimated at approximately 200,000 homes in a country with just over 1 million households), particularly among the lowest income segments.
About Banco Nacional de Panamá (BNP)
Banco Nacional de Panamá is an independent, state-owned bank in Panama, with $16.4 billion in total assets as of March 31, 2024. BNP serves a systemically important role, serving as the financial arm of the Panamanian government and all public entities. Complementing its systemic role, BNP operates as a general license bank, offering universal banking services to companies and individuals through the largest branch network of any financial institution in the country –93 branches spread across Panama, including in underserved areas. It is the second largest bank in the country by assets and has over 1.2 million clients. Furthermore, BNP is the market leader in financing Panama’s agricultural sector and to other financial institutions, the second largest provider of personal loans, and second largest provider of mortgages for lower-income households, providing credit to individuals that are underserved by private banks.
About JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading financial services firm based in the United States of America (“U.S.”), with operations worldwide. JPMorgan Chase had $4.1 trillion in assets and $341 billion in stockholders’ equity as of June 30, 2024. The Firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and small businesses, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management. Under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands, the Firm serves millions of customers in the U.S., and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients globally. Information about JPMorgan Chase & Co. is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.
About HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of HSBC, is headquartered in London. HSBC serves customers worldwide from offices in 60 countries and territories. With assets of $2,975 billion as of June 30, 2024, HSBC is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations.
About Standard Chartered Bank (SCB)
Standard Chartered bank is a leading international bank with a history of more than 160 years in some of the world’s most dynamic markets. With presence across 59 countries across the globe, SCB is one of the leading franchises providing customized, value-added solutions to meet client needs across the full spectrum.
About World Bank Group Guarantees
Initiated in 2024, World Bank Group Guarantees consolidates all guarantee products and experts from across the World Bank Group institutions at MIGA. It provides a simplified and comprehensive menu of guarantee solutions, enabling clients to select the instrument that best suits their needs. The platform streamlines processes, removes redundancies, and provides greater accessibility by de-risking investments in developing countries. Its goal is to boost the WBG’s annual guarantee issuance to $20 billion by 2030.
For more information about the guarantee platform, please visit: https://www.worldbank.org/wbgguarantees
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Contact:
In Washington: Elizabeth Howton, (202) 458-5922 or ehowton@worldbankgroup.org