After six months of waiting, Ara Boyadjian and his family have finally settled into their newly-built home on the outskirts of Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. They say it was a dream worth waiting for, made affordable through a loan that required the house to save energy via insulated walls, doors, and windows.
“We made all the windows and all the walls on the first and second floors more energy efficient,” said Boyadjian.
Addressing climate change in Europe and Central Asia is among the priorities of IFC. In Armenia, a country that relies on expensive imported energy resources, the population struggles to keep up with escalating utility prices. IFC is helping increase energy efficiency through a combination of investment and advisory services.
IFC’s $10 million loan to Byblos Bank Armenia, backed with advisory services from the IFC Armenia Sustainable Energy Finance Project, has increased public access to housing funds and helped create the country’s first energy-efficiency lending packages offered by a local bank (watch video here).
“By promoting energy efficiency and energy-efficient lending products, we can help homeowners in Armenia reduce their annual energy bills, lead more environmentally-friendly lifestyles, and improve the comfort and safety of their homes,” said Byblos Bank Armenia CEO Ararat Ghukasyan. “This is the first funding of this nature in Armenia and shows that energy efficiency is important to both Byblos Bank Armenia and our clients.”
In addition to financing climate-smart infrastructure projects directly, IFC also supports local financial institutions active in the sustainable energy market. IFC’s customized lending and advisory services packages help these clients build profitable new lines of business, leveraging domestic resources that would otherwise be unavailable for clean energy financing.
Together, this combination helps increase the private sector’s role as part = of the World Bank Group's strategy for the fight against climate change. IFC has provided energy efficiency financing training and expert advice to Byblos Bank credit officers and risk specialists, detailing ways of assessing risks and= processing energy-efficiency loan applications.
These credit officers are now equipped to help their clients save power, cut energy bills, improve the quality of their lives and build a cleaner, greener future.
“We are able to show the exact savings to customers, and show that if he performs the following energy efficiency measures, it is really helpful for them, and they see the real numbers, the real energy efficiency savings,” said Karine Sargsyan, Branch Management Officer at Byblos Bank Armenia.
Through the project, Mr. Boyadjian learned about the materials needed to build his energy efficient home. He also got a loan, half of which he used for energy efficiency. Now, some 70 percent of his energy efficiency investment is being paid off through the energy savings.
Armenian homeowners decide to make their houses energy efficient to save money on their heating and electricity bills and to protect the environment. The new energy-efficiency lending packages offered by Byblos Bank Armenia improve living conditions, benefit the environment, and help families save money.
The IFC Armenia Sustainable Finance Project is being implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Finance of Austria.
January 2014