URSA Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are about to launch a new lending program aimed at supporting the energy-efficient projects. The bank has already been offered a $50m credit line by the IFC.

‘This program is expected to boost the Urals and Siberia’s energy-efficiency markets. The IFC experts intend to help URSA Bank learn about the energy-saving projects and to support the bank’s customers at every implementation stage,’ the bank’s press officer reports.

URSA Bank is to finance the projects targeted at an impressive improvement in the energy-saving field. This could do with acquiring general industrial equipment or specific machinery or implementation of renewable energy source and cogeneration-based technologies. The history of the corporation’s successful cooperation with a number of Russian financial organizations has made it quite obvious that energy saving benefits both large businesses and SMEs and even helps them offset their loan payments.

The bank has already tried a pilot project of such kind early in the year by offering $3m to Hypercity in Kurgan; the money was to be spent on energy-efficient technologies and buying effective boilers, an absorption unit, an automated heating system, and the air conditioning, ventilation, and recuperation system.

‘We have been actively investing in the regional energy-saving projects. Given the current price growth, these projects are becoming essential to business growth,’ says Sofia Linn, the IFC energy-saving promotion program’s local coordinator.

URSA Bank’s Vice President Pavel Galan says the program will appeal not only to companies that use up a lot of energy but to virtually any business thanks to the special lending terms and expert assessment of a project’s energy efficiency.

‘This is our trial balloon of sorts, and we might actually expand in this direction using our own resources,’ he notes.