Financial law

The three topics covered by our financial law focus area are:

• access to finance
• insolvency and debt restructuring and
• financial technology (fintech).

The EBRD strives to promote a sound, efficient and predictable legal and regulatory framework for access to finance to support small and medium-sized businesses in the face of liquidity constraints in the EBRD regions. Secured transactions, insolvency systems and creditor-debtor relationships are a cornerstone of modern economies and of our work in emerging-market regions. Fintech, representing high-tech innovations in the financial sector, has become a major driver of growth in the economies where the EBRD invests. 

The Legal Transition Programme’s role

The EBRD has substantial experience in supporting legal reform to promote access to finance, improve insolvency and creditor-debtor systems, and support financial technologies. We have facilitated the development of legal and regulatory systems for insolvency and of frameworks to support financial restructuring and secured credit. This has strengthened pledges and mortgages, supported the development of different agricultural financing products and enabled explorations of alternative financial structures, such as leasing and factoring. We have also led the development of national non-performing loan strategies in line with the work done across the EBRD on the Vienna Initiative 2.0.

On the basis of our significant positive experience and ability to leverage cross-border knowledge and expertise, we are exploring well established and innovative financial products and encouraging legislators and market participants to use insolvency as a tool for corporate rescue. We hope our efforts will assist economies where the EBRD invests in bridging some transition gaps that still exist in this area and in modernising their secured transactions and insolvency legal frameworks.