With more than fifty years experience in financing the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and investing its reserves and pension fund, the World Bank Treasury has developed substantial expertise in asset and liability management. During this time, it has achieved a global reputation as a prudent and innovative borrower, investor and risk manager.

Increasingly, finance ministries and central banks and pension funds in  member countries have requested that the Bank provide a range of technical assistance to help them develop their asset and liability management strategies and build institutional capacity. Treasury currently provides a full range of advisory services in all aspects of asset and liability management. Over the past fifteen years, Treasury's client services programs have helped official institutions in more than one hundred countries.

Treasury is at the heart of IBRD's borrowing and lending operations and also performs treasury functions for other members of the World Bank Group.

From the international capital markets, Treasury currently borrows around US$10 to US$15 billion annually in about 10-15 currencies. It has offered IBRD bonds and notes in over 47 different currencies and opened up new markets for international investors through its issuance in emerging market currencies. Treasury is an extensive user of interest rate and currency swaps, with about US$30 billion in annual volume and a swap book totaling around US$150 billion.

In its asset management business, Treasury now manages between US$60 and US$65 billion in global liquidity portfolios and balanced funds for the World Bank Group, the staff pension fund, central banks and other multilateral organizations. The asset management business is supported by state-of-the-art portfolio and risk management analytics and systems. Treasury's investment record in obtaining index-plus returns on very low risk has earned it an enviable reputation in this area.

Treasury also develops innovative lending products to meet World Bank clients' requests for customized financing - loans, derivatives, market hedges and other instruments - for their developmental programs.

Click here to see Treasury's organization chart.