NaBFID Analyst / Officer key terms

A government-backed or multilateral entity that supplies long-term credit and equity to projects the private market underfinances, often with a policy mandate such as infrastructure, housing, or small business growth.

An arrangement in which a long-term lender commits in advance to repay or refinance a construction lender once the project is operating, letting banks fund risky build phases without holding the asset.

Funding offered on terms softer than the market, such as below-market interest, long tenors, or grace periods, usually justified by externalities or bankability gaps rather than pure commercial return.

Structuring that layers concessional or public capital with commercial capital to shift risk and attract private investors into development projects they would otherwise decline.

A capital grant that covers part of a project's cost so that user charges or tariffs can stay affordable while the concession still earns an acceptable return for the operator.

A long-term contractual arrangement in which a government body transfers design, build, finance, or operate responsibilities to a private partner in exchange for performance-linked payments or user fees.

The core contract granting a private operator the right to build and run an infrastructure asset for a defined period, setting tariffs, service standards, handback conditions, and termination remedies.

A standardised contract template issued by government so that bidders and lenders see identical risk allocation across projects, cutting negotiation time and legal cost.

Cash available for debt service in a period divided by the principal and interest due in that period; a ratio at or above the lender's covenant signals the project can service its loan.

The lowest coverage ratio a loan agreement permits, tested each period; breaching it typically blocks distributions to sponsors and can trigger a lock-up or default event.

The contractual order in which project revenues are applied, usually operations, senior debt service, reserves, subordinated debt, and finally equity distributions, with traps that divert cash on covenant breach.

A funded reserve, often six months of debt service, held to cover a temporary cash shortfall so scheduled repayments continue without invoking default.

The discount rate at which a stream of cash flows has a net present value of zero; used to compare project or equity returns against a hurdle rate.

The sum of future cash flows discounted to today at a chosen rate; a positive value means the investment earns more than that discount rate.

The minimum return a lender or investor requires before committing capital to a project, reflecting its cost of funds plus a premium for the risks taken.

Lending in which repayment depends primarily on the cash flow of a single ring-fenced project, with limited or no recourse to the sponsors' other assets.

A legally separate company created solely to own, build, and operate a project, isolating its assets, liabilities, and cash flows from the sponsors' balance sheets.

Debt where the lender's claim is confined to the project company and its assets, so sponsors are not personally liable if cash flows fall short.

Undertakings given by project owners beyond their equity, such as cost overrun funding, completion guarantees, or cash shortfall support, bridging gaps in a non-recourse structure.

Legal and accounting separation that keeps a project's revenues and assets apart from the parent's other businesses, so unrelated failures cannot drain the project's cash.

A structure designed so the project entity is unlikely to be pulled into a sponsor's insolvency, protecting lenders' security and keeping essential services running.

The lender's structured assessment of a borrower's willingness and ability to repay, covering business model, financials, projections, security, and risks before sanction.

A study confirming that a project's technology, market demand, tariffs, and cost assumptions support the projected cash flows lenders will rely on.

Independent verification of a borrower's legal, technical, financial, and environmental position, performed before commitment so that appraisal rests on checked facts rather than management claims.

Any mechanism that improves a borrower's credit profile or reduces lender loss, such as guarantees, subordination, overcollateralisation, or insurance.

A partial guarantee under which a third party absorbs the earliest losses on a loan pool up to a cap, encouraging lenders to lend to segments they would otherwise avoid.

An agency's forward-looking opinion on a borrower's or instrument's likelihood of default, expressed on an alphanumeric scale and used to set pricing and investment limits.

A loan on which principal or interest has remained overdue beyond the regulator's stipulated period, requiring classification, provisioning, and a recovery plan.

The charge a lender recognises in its accounts against expected losses on impaired exposures, reducing reported profit and capital while building a buffer.

The collective term for loans showing repayment weakness, including restructured accounts, substandard assets, and those already classified as non-performing.

A lender's regulatory capital expressed as a percentage of risk-weighted assets, showing how much loss-absorbing cushion it holds above minimum requirements.

On-balance-sheet and off-balance-sheet exposures multiplied by risk factors set by the regulator, so that safer loans consume less capital than riskier ones.

Managing the mix of maturities, rates, and currencies on both sides of the balance sheet so that obligations can be met without forced or costly funding.

High-quality liquid assets divided by projected net cash outflows over thirty days; it tests whether a lender can survive a short, severe funding stress.

Rules on capital, liquidity, exposure limits, and governance imposed on financial institutions to keep individual failures from spreading through the system.

A regulatory cap on the credit a lender may extend to one borrower or group, preventing dangerous concentration of default risk in a single counterparty.

Aggregate credit extended to a borrower together with its related entities, measured against a separate regulatory ceiling to capture connected-party risk.

Overseas borrowing by a domestic entity under a regulatory framework that caps cost, sets maturity floors, and restricts end-use, with reporting obligations to the central bank.

The mandatory process of identifying a customer, verifying beneficial ownership, and monitoring activity, aimed at preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.

Laws and internal controls that require institutions to detect, report, and deter the movement of illicit funds through suspicious transaction monitoring and record-keeping.

The natural person who ultimately owns or controls a customer or the entity behind a transaction, identified even where shares are held through layers of nominees.

A written statement of what a business function needs a system or process to do, covering scope, users, outcomes, and acceptance criteria without prescribing technical design.

A description of how an actor interacts with a system to achieve a goal, capturing preconditions, main flow, and alternative paths for design and testing.

A structured comparison of current and target states that identifies missing capabilities, processes, or data, and prioritises the work needed to close them.

Paired maps of how a process works today and how it should work after change, used to quantify improvement and design the transition.

Drawing a workflow as steps, decision points, owners, and handoffs so that delays, duplication, and control gaps become visible and measurable.

Business users run scripted scenarios on a completed system to confirm it meets agreed requirements before sign-off and go-live.

The policies, owners, and controls that determine who may access, change, and rely on data, and how quality, lineage, and privacy are maintained.

A traceable record of where data came from, how it was transformed, and where it moved, supporting audit, error tracing, and regulatory reporting.

The discipline of maintaining single, authoritative records for core entities such as customers, borrowers, and projects, so that systems do not hold conflicting versions.

Scheduled reports and dashboards that give managers portfolio, delinquency, disbursement, and covenant data for decisions rather than raw transaction detail.

A monitored indicator, such as delayed disbursement, falling coverage, or covenant drift, that flags rising borrower stress before formal default appears.

The central platform that records deposits, loans, repayments, and customer accounts, feeding downstream reporting and accounting.

The exposure of earnings or capital to movements in interest rates, arising when assets and liabilities reprice at different times or on different bases.

A return measure judged against the risk taken to earn it, allowing comparison of projects or portfolios that carry different levels of uncertainty.

The rate used to convert future cash flows into today's value, usually built from the cost of funds plus a premium for the project's risk.