Products & Services
FMO makes a full range of financial services available – tailored to the needs of the specific financial institution or company with which we’re working.
FMO serves a niche market. This means that, while we are a bank, we only provide finance where regular commercial banks are not willing to do so. Our access to government funds means that we are also able to take higher risks than purely commercial players. We work in countries – and with clients and projects – with a higher risk profile, in order to be ‘additional’ to the market.
This means that we provide long-term finance where most loans are short term. We provide high-risk, innovative financial structures – such as mezzanine and equity – in addition to regular loans.
We finance commercially viable companies that meet – or commit to meeting – the social, environmental and governance performance standards that we seek to promote in business.
We finance Capacity Development in order to strengthen the organizational and managerial competences of the entrepreneurs we invest in.
FMO specializes in offering local-currency finance that other banks are often not willing or able to lend due to the currency risks involved. Local currency lending is beneficial to our clients as well as to their local economies: it reduces the risk of currency mismatch and builds economic development.
With the exception of government funds, we hedge our own currency risk through The Currency Exchange Fund (TCX), which allows us to hedge our risk across several currencies. By taking on a significant portion of the risk ourselves, we encourage other investors to join us. This is part of our ‘catalyst’ role.
