BSTDB Hosts Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium Annual Meeting in Thessaloniki
Multilateral development banks and development finance institutions exchange data and experience to strengthen understanding of credit risk in emerging markets
The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) hosted the 2026 GEMs General Assembly Annual Meeting at its headquarters in Thessaloniki from 23 to 25 September, bringing together risk-management professionals from multilateral development banks and development finance institutions.
The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium brings together 28 development finance institutions that pool anonymised data from their lending operations to build a clearer picture of credit risk in emerging markets and developing economies. The data cover defaults and recoveries across decades of lending activity and help address gaps in reliable, comparable information available to investors and financial institutions.
Over three days, GEMs members exchanged experience and discussed ongoing work on credit-risk data, methodology, reporting and the use of GEMs statistics.
Established in 2009 by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), GEMs has developed into a long-standing collaboration among multilateral development banks and development finance institutions. Members work together on common approaches and methodologies for analysing credit performance in emerging and developing markets.
The Consortium draws on around 40 years of lending experience and maintains the world’s largest credit-risk database for emerging markets. Its statistics provide additional evidence for assessing risk in markets where historical information can be limited and are made available to the public free of charge.
By improving access to information on actual default and recovery experience, GEMs can help investors distinguish observed credit performance from perceptions of risk and support more informed investment decisions in emerging and developing economies.
BSTDB joined GEMs in 2011 and has since contributed data from its operations to the Consortium.
The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) is an international financial institution established by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine. The BSTDB headquarters are in Thessaloniki, Greece. BSTDB supports economic development and regional cooperation by providing loans, credit lines, equity and guarantees for projects and trade financing in the public and private sectors in its member countries. The authorized capital of the Bank is EUR 3.45 billion. For information on BSTDB, visit www.bstdb.org.
