PRESS RELEASE
20 March, 2010

Parex and EBRD agree on guarantee issuance for bank’s clients

Parex banka has signed a trade facilitation agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), aimed to assist Parex banka’s clients to reduce the risks of their international transactions.

The EBRD support will be available to Parex banka’s customers operating in the Baltics, which import and export goods and services and need bank guarantees and letters of credit.

Agnese Paegle, head of the Corporate Services Directorate: “This is a key step we’re taking with the help of our second largest shareholder. We’ll help our corporate clients to pursue their business plans and to enhance their business volumes. The EBRD is well known and prestigious throughout the world, and its guarantees will allow businesspeople to open up new roads toward their business goals, as well as to find new and valuable partners abroad.”

One of the Parex banka’s strategic aims for this year is to introduce and to develop new corporate client services standards both in Riga and in the most active regional centres - in Ventspils, Liepāja, Tukums, Ogre, Jelgava, Valmiera, Rezekne, Daugavpils and Jekabpils.

About Parex banka:

Founded in 1992, Parex banka currently employs some 1 900 people at branches all over Latvia and offers universal banking services throughout the Baltic region, the CIS and other European nations such as Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Parex Group companies operate across the banking, finance, leasing, asset management and life insurance sectors. Parex banka has signed up to the European Code of Conduct on housing loans.

For more information please contact:
Inga Saleniece
Corporate Communications Department
Telephone: +371 67778870 or +371 26564629
E-mail: pr@parex.lv