Developing our key national and international priority areas

At this time the understanding of development problems changed, as are the approaches selected to address them. Partnership is replacing assistance – and capital assistance has become Financial Cooperation. KfW is increasingly gearing its work to achieving sustainable and effective poverty reduction and natural resource management. This requires stronger advisory and consultancy services in partner countries. Today, more than 70 KfW offices in developing and emerging countries are supporting and coordinating work and assignments on the ground.

Refinancing also receives a makeover. Until the mid-80s, KfW's refinancing activities followed a fairly unspectacular trajectory. The conventional practice was "traditional" refinancing in Deutschmarks, mainly using "Schuldscheine" (promissory notes), as was customary in those days. Now, though, there is movement on the financial markets – the growing internationalisation of the capital markets opens up whole new vistas for KfW.

The vigour of KfW's export financing business means there are new levels of risk to be managed, especially currency risk. First bonds are issued on the euro-dollar market, in Swiss francs and in pounds sterling. These are later followed by dollar and yen issues, both markets that will later prove to be key refinancing sources for KfW.

In 1985 KfW is one of the first German issuers to undergo a credit rating – and is awarded a triple-A (AAA) rating. Two years later KfW successfully registers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – the first German issuer to do so.

In 1989 KfW raises funds worth an equivalent of EUR 8.7 billion on the capital market – at this point barely one fifth of the funds approved for 1989 originate from the ERP Special Fund. Today, KfW Group's issuance volume of around EUR 75 billion makes it Europe's fifth-largest issuer after Germany, France, the UK and Italy.