CEB hails 2020 financial results amid COVID-19 crisis
The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) unaudited 2020 results show a net of €74.8 million in 2020 compared to €104.7 million in 2019 (-28.5%) in a period dominated by the coronavirus crisis.
Excluding the valuation effects of the IFRS accounting requirements (IFRS 9-related cost of risk and valuation of financial instruments), core earnings reached €85.7 million compared to €102.1 million in 2019 (-16.0%) due to the continuous low-interest rate environment. As in previous years, no credit incidents occurred during the 2020 financial year.
In 2020, 56 new projects were approved for a total of €6 billion, of which 52% were dedicated to COVID-19 loans (2019: 46 projects / €4 billion). The stock of projects reached a record level of €9.5 billion, up 11.7% compared to 2019 (€8.5 billion), and loan disbursements amounted to €4.5 billion (of which 34% were dedicated to COVID-19 loans), an increase of 56.5% compared to 2019 (€2.8 billion).
Accordingly, outstanding loans rose significantly from €15.4 billion at year-end 2019 to €17.4 billion at year-end 2020 (+13.0%). Forty-four per cent of the total loans outstanding benefitted from credit enhancements, representing €7.6 billion.
