The ProCredit group is a group of development-oriented commercial banks operating in South Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, and South America, along with a bank in Germany. Since 2015, the ProCredit institutions have financed renewable energy (RE) projects through project financing mechanisms. Given the unique and complex nature of project financing, this has required an adjustment to existing ProCredit policies and processes. ProCredit Holding, the parent company of the ProCredit group, received co-financing from the Austrian development bank OeEB to contract IPC to strengthen its project finance approach through capacity building of key management and staff at all ProCredit banks engaged in RE project finance, with a particular focus on solar, biogas and small-scale hydro energy projects.

In order to build RE project finance capacity at multiple ProCredit banks, based on the needs identified through meetings with ProCredit management and key staff, IPC developed training concepts, plans, methodologies, learning tools and materials for staff at all levels, including high-level RE project finance training for managers and in-depth training for frontline staff.

As part of its support, IPC conducted three two-week in-depth training courses for 74 ProCredit bank staff, conducted and moderated a two-and-a-half-day high-level management workshop for 25 management board members, and implemented a series of 5 day modular refresher trainings for ProCredit lending staff in Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania. IPC-developed training material delivered to ProCredit included presentations on project finance (e.g. project finance cycle) and RE technologies, energy production and cash flow calculation spreadsheets, and comprehensive case studies based on real RE projects (e.g., technical documents, contracts). IPC also assisted ProCredit by evaluating the results and performance of trained staff.

In order to support the training programme mentioned above, IPC also assisted ProCredit in the development of knowledge tools for staff (library of technical guides and manuals to assess RE projects), as well as the adjustment of (online) monitoring tools to assess the impact of RE projects in ProCredit’s portfolio.