BRICSPOST: New BRICS Development Bank Preparing to Go Live

This BRICSPOST article provides an update on progress being made at the BRICS Development Bank which intends to start making loans in April 2016. Below are some quotes from the article. I noted a couple of key points in bold type.

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"In his first public lecture in South Africa, the Indian President of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) KV Kamath said that speed was what differentiated his bank from others such as the World Bank.

Emerging market economies need to have projects approved and implemented quickly, he said on Tuesday.

“But we will not sacrifice transparency, good governance and prudential lending criteria in the pursuit of speed,” he said at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in Pretoria.

“What we are doing is creating a start-up with many processes such as recruitment, project appraisal and discussions with capital providers taking place in parallel, so we expect to make our first loans in April next year,” he added.

During the lecture “From Concept to Reality: The BRICS New Development Bank” Kamath said that given the basic structure of the bank was only formalised in July this year, the NDB had already made tremendous speedy strides."

. . . . .

“The capital providers we have spoken to are keen on new instruments such as the bonds that we will be issuing, while the central bank governors said that they had no issues if we borrowed in one country and used the proceeds in another country as the $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement has swap mechanisms in place,” Kamath told The BRICS Post.

To mitigate exchange rate risk, the NDB will initially focus on loans and borrowing in the national currencies of the BRICS."

. . . . . 

"After the lecture, Kamath told The BRICS Post that the NDB would not be issuing Special Drawing Rights (SDR's) like the International Monetary Fund.

“There is no direct link between how much capital a BRICS member paid into the NDB and how much that BRICS member can borrow. Each project will be evaluated on its own merits.”