Address: Palmengartenstrasse 5-9, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Telephone: +49 69 74 31-0
Fax: +49 69 74 31-29 44
Email: info@kfw.de
Website: http://www.kfw.de

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Description:

KfW is a German government-owned development bank, based in Frankfurt. Its name originally comes from Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, meaning Reconstruction Credit Institute, and it was formed after World War II as part of the Marshall Plan.

KfW Bankengruppe gives impetus to economic, social and ecological development worldwide. As a promotional bank under the ownership of the Federal Republic and the Länder (federal states), it offers support to encourage sustainable improvement in economic, social, ecological living and business conditions, among others in the areas of small and medium-sized enterprise, entrepreneurialship, environmental protection, housing, infrastructure, education finance, project and export finance, and development cooperation.

Their Tasks

KfW Bankengruppe has also become a strategic partner of business and politics. As an adviser to the German federal government they provide expertise in the privatisation of federally owned companies. This is complemented by additional tasks on behalf of the German government.

Global Loans

• To provide financing in other countries KfW Bankengruppe is granting global loans to partner banks throughout Europe, enabling them to extend medium and long-term investment loans to small and medium-sized enterprises and to finance private residential building projects that target environmental and climate protection.

Cross-Task Environmental Protection

• As a promotional and development bank acting on behalf of the German federal government and the federal states, KfW Bankengruppe is also under a particular obligation to protect the environment.

Funding

• To fulfil its promotional mission KfW Bankengruppe uses a high leverage: the international capital market. Funding for the large number of reduced-interest promotional loans is virtually provided by bulk-buying

Their Values

Their values are the basis on which they stand. They are part of their corporate model, which they have summarized in the KfW compass. Creativity, humanity, responsibility, market economy, sustainability, performance and tolerance are the yardstick by which they measure their action.

Performance

• Performance is measured by results, not by the process. Its highest criterion is the benefit to the customer. Performance is based on the belief that it is not enough to merely carry out a task, but that it makes sense to fulfil it as well and efficiently as possible.

Market economy

• The market economy offers the best available basis to ensure quality of life. When it fails to do so, it is necessary to intervene with promotional activities. It also represents an obligation to act efficiently in our work as a bank.

Sustainability

• Promotion must be more than selective assistance. Those who offer their support with a larger framework in mind, will see the need for assistance decrease and produce a more consistent change in the end. Therefore promotion aims at sustainable development.

Creativity

• Creativity is the individual prerequisite for innovation. Creativity knows no rules. It has something to do with abandoning rules that have become self-evident, often even with deliberately breaking them. The result can be spontaneously convincing and then it easily gains acceptance.

Responsibility

• Every action implies responsibility for the consequences. Anyone who acts inevitably takes risks and needs the courage to face the consequences of his or her action.

Humanity

• Their action is designed to benefit the people and to help them improve their economic, social and ecological quality of life. Our commitment to humanity is concretized in the fact that they tie their promotion to ecological and social standards, to good governance and to the fight against corruption. In their daily work and dealings with each other they set an example of humanity.

Tolerance

• Tolerance is based on the belief that no opinion and no action can claim to be absolutely right. It implies openness to accept other people's ideas without any prejudice.

What this means in practice becomes clear when they explain the individual values on the next pages by the example of concrete areas of operation. In all their actions they are oriented towards each of their values.

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