Co-Investors

IFC has developed solutions for various types of partners to invest alongside us ― or share risk with us ― as we lend to businesses in emerging and fragile markets.

Commercial Banks

Commercial banks are the cornerstone of IFC's global syndications program. For more than 60 years, IFC has partnered with banks to extend its lending capacity to developing-country firms across infrastructure, information technology, the real sector, and the financial services.

To date, IFC has syndicated over $70 billion in loans for borrowers in more than 90 countries. Nearly 200 international commercial banks are currently eligible lenders under our B Loan program.

Global banks typically co-invest alongside IFC in hard currency loans, with IFC acting as lender of record. The B Loan structure offers commercial banks the added benefit of IFC’s privileges and immunities. 

IFC also works with a growing network of local commercial banks to mobilize local currency financing for borrowers, most often through parallel loan structures. In addition, IFC plays a leading role in developing market standards, such as the Green Loan Principles, to help partners better measure and report sustainability impact.

Through these partnerships, IFC supports international banks and their clients to amplify its impact in developing countries with project finance and corporate loans, equity investments, guarantees, trade finance and working capital solutions.

Development Finance Institutions

As the only private-sector development institution with a global mandate, IFC leverages its footprint in more than 100 countries to originate unique impact investing opportunities for public-sector partners.

These partners include over 30 multilateral and bilateral development banks that are signatories to IFC’s Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA), a standardized co-lending framework that streamlines documentation and enhances efficiency for both borrowers and lenders.

Working with MCA signatories, IFC identifies developing-country firms that are strong candidates for impact loans—supporting poverty reduction, economic growth, and sustainable development. Since 2010, IFC has syndicated more than $19 billion under the MCA program.

A new extension of the MCA, the Joint Cooperation Framework Agreement (JCFA), enables other lenders to serve as lead arranger and establishes a framework for early-stage project development work. Through the JCFA, DFIs are jointly expanding the pipeline of bankable projects in developing countries.

Export Credit Agencies

Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) are financial entities, often sponsored by national governments, with mandates to help domestic private companies manage the risk associated with pursuing new trade and investment opportunities in international markets.

When ECAs support client activity in developing economies, IFC leverages its global footprint to connect those clients with local firms, provide financing from its own balance sheet, including debt, equity, trade finance and other products, and mobilize additional syndications partners to deliver comprehensive financing solutions.

IFC’s financing and syndications benefit from its strong risk management practices, corporate governance standards, and robust environmental and social impact measurement and reporting.

ECAs typically participate alongside IFC as parallel lenders or to provide risk cover to commercial banks under separate parallel loan tranches. IFC is actively expanding its engagement with the ECA community to unlock new opportunities for partnership and co-investment.

Impact Investors

Impact investors will find in IFC a like-minded partner. As the original impact investor, IFC’s mission is to promote economic development and improve people’s lives wherever it operates. 

IFC has long integrated social, environmental and economic considerations into its investment decisions. Our Operating Principles for Impact Management, a set of guidelines based on how we manage and report impact, has set a common standard for other investors to adopt.

IFC uses an impact-rating system called the Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring Framework to assess every investment it makes by considering expected development outcomes and effects on market creation. 

IFC welcomes established impact investors, and those entering the responsible investing space for the first time to participate as syndications partners. Our products enable impact investors to expand their footprints into diverse opportunities across key economic sectors in developing countries around the world. 

Eligible partners can participate in individual investments via B Loans,  parallel loans or portfolio-based platforms such as the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program.

Institutional Investors

Institutional investors collectively manage hundreds of trillions of dollars in capital. Over the coming decades, trillions of dollars of investment will be needed in key economic sectors like infrastructure, clean technology, and sustainable agriculture to achieve global development goals and continue to help lift people out of poverty. 

As IFC leads efforts to close the development financing gap, partnering with institutional investors must be part of the solution. IFC is developing innovative financing structures that make it easy for institutional investors to allocate capital to borrowers in emerging markets.

Examples include IFC’s Emerging Markets Securitization Program (EMSP) and the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP), IFC’s syndications platform for institutional investors.

Insurance Companies

As the global community seeks ways to attract more private capital to developing economies, insurers provide valuable risk appetite that enables development banks to make larger loans and reach more borrowers.  

IFC currently works with more than twenty private insurers that provide IFC with a comprehensive non-payment insurance product on its medium- and long-term loans to borrowers, as well as trade credit insurance on short-term loans and guarantees.

Through MCPP, insurers partner with IFC to underwrite eligible loans IFC makes to borrowers in emerging markets. IFC also engages insurers on a facultative (single-borrower) basis for individual transactions, allowing them to take on a portion of IFC’s credit risk.

Over time, we have deepened our relationships with insurers and expanded their partnership to cover a growing range of assets including Basel III Tier 2 subordinated debt, debt securities issuances, and local currency-denominated loans.