The World Bank Group (WBG) has launched its much-awaited guarantee platform that will serve as a one-stop-shop for all the guarantee products from across the Group.

The platform, called World Bank Group Guarantees, is housed at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and brings together products and experts from the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and MIGA for simplicity, efficiency, and speed, the World Bank said in a press statement.

The platform will provide three types of coverages:

  1. Credit guarantees for loans to the public or private sector
  2. Trade finance guarantees for trade finance projects involving public entities
  3. Political risk insurance against non-commercial risks for private sector projects or public-private partnerships

According to the statement, the new platform’s simplified and comprehensive menu will enable clients to select the instrument that best suits their needs. Additionally, it will streamline processes and remove redundancies, like a requirement for independent and duplicative due diligence processes from institutions within the Group.

In his previous speeches, World Bank President Ajay Banga had underlined that the consolidation of all guarantee products and experts from across the Group is an essential step to meet its goal of tripling the guarantees business by 2030 to more than $20 billion annually and catalyse private capital flows into emerging markets and developing economies.

In February 2024, a report by Zawya Projects quoted Banga as saying at the World Government Summit (WGS) in Dubai that that Group aims to slash project approval times from an average of 19 months to 12 months by the end of 2024.

The Private Sector Investment Lab, launched by the WBG in June 2023 to identify barriers and solutions for private sector investment in emerging markets, provided specific guidance on using guarantee instruments.

In fiscal year 2024, the World Bank Group issued approximately $10.3 billion in new guarantees using products that will be part of the platform: $8.2 billion from MIGA, $1.4 billion from IFC, and nearly $700 million from the World Bank.

(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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