Royal Merchant Bank and Finance Company

completed

RMB originally began operating in Trinidad and Tobago in 1976 as Royal Bank Mortgage and Finance Company, specializing in residential and commercial real estate mortgages. The Company successfully expanded its operations to become one of the country’s leading mortgage financing companies. By 1991, however, the Company had altered its strategic objectives to include merchant and investment banking and changed its name to its present form that same year. The Company is now one of the leading merchant banks in the Eastern Caribbean region as well as in its home market, providing specialized financial services to sovereign governments as well as public and private sector corporations of the region. IFC’s financing package will provide needed long-term funding for RMB, enabling the Bank to develop a more matched funding base to help meet the growing and largely unmet demand for project finance in the Eastern Caribbean region. By lending through one of the locally owned banks, IFC will demonstrate its confidence in the T&T financial system, while bringing international environmental standards and practices to projects throughout the Eastern Caribbean region. IFC will also be leveraging its scarce resources to good use in the region by using an intermediary with broad regional coverage. In addition, IFC will be working with the Company to help strengthen its project finance capabilities. The credit line would be IFC''s first financial sector investment in T&T since the 1980s and will help establish a foundation for other IFC financial markets development work in the country.