Who used GEFF?

EBRD designed GEFF to be a flexible financing facility for participating financial institutions (PFIs), who were enabled to choose how to lend to help households become greener.  Options included lending to:

• Individuals, or groups of individuals owning or residing in a house or apartment in which you intend to implement an eligible investment or, or who want to renovate and older home or to build or buy an energy-efficient new home;
• Housing associations, condominium associations of apartment owners or other equivalent body which represents the interests of residents;
• Service providers, meaning service provider providing maintenance, operation, installation, construction, refurbishment or similar services;
• Vendors of equipment or materials listed on the Green Technology Selector, interested in participating in the Facility’s vendor financing programme;
• Businesses that manufacture or supply a “green” technology as listed on the Green Technology Selector planning to sustain or expand the “green” part of your business.

All three PFIs chose to set up only lending products for individual borrowers:

Banca Transilvania created three products

• BT green consumer loans to buy energy-saving household items that appear on the Green Technology Selector
• BT StarCard credit card loans to buy energy efficient fridges, freezers and air conditioners from its partner retailer eMAG
• BT green home mortgages to buy energy-efficient homes.

Although BT exhausted its €40 million EBRD funding in 2019 it continues to offer green home mortgages today.

UniCredit Bank (UCB) created:

• UCB green home mortgages to enable Romanian households to buy energy efficient apartments and houses.

Although UCB exhausted its entire €35 million EBRD funding in 2018, it continues to offer green mortgages today.

UniCredit Consumer Financing (UCF) created

• Green consumer loans (‘creditul verde fără ipoteca‘)

An initial €10 million of EBRD financing was used help UCF’s customers buy energy efficient household products and materials such as refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, lighting, boilers, home insulation and windows. The product was set up in 2019, and reached its €10 million lending target in the spring of 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic started.

UCF went on to borrow another €15 million from EBRD, and, following an 18-month break, re-launched its successful green consumer loan product, raising its total GEFF portfolio to €25 million by the summer of 2022.

In total, this residential GEFF extended €100 million of green lending to households in Romania in the form of 1,334 green home mortgages and 6,861 green consumer loans.