world bank

The World Bank has ambitious plans to expand its use of catastrophe bonds for member countries by roughly 400% over the next five years, growing the amount of World Bank issued cat bonds outstanding to as much as $5 billion, Bloomberg has reported.

This video features another panel discussion from our Artemis ILS Asia 2023 conference, held in Singapore on July 13th 2023, a session focused on public sector and sovereign risk transfer schemes and the use of catastrophe bonds and capital markets capacity.

The North African country of Morocco is reeling after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck to the south of Marrakesh on Friday night, with more than 2,000 deaths now reported, the USGS forecasts that the economic impact could be as significant as 8% of GDP.

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have announced a partnership that will see them working together to improve access to disaster risk financing across the Caribbean region, with catastrophe bonds one instrument in scope.

The World Bank Group said today that it intends to build on its already available catastrophe insurance solutions, such as catastrophe bonds, to make access to disaster risk financing without adding debt a reality for member countries.

The Finance Minister of Jamaica Nigel Clarke has told Reuters that his country intends to renew its catastrophe bond coverage when it reaches maturity at the end of this year and will do so as a stand-alone cat bond for Jamaica, or as a regional Caribbean wide one if others want to participate.

The fact capacity and capital was tight in the catastrophe bond market at the time of the issuance of the $350 million of IBRD – Chile 2023 cat bond notes drove the World Bank team to look to traditional re/insurers and the issuance of simultaneous catastrophe swaps, resulting in much stronger execution for Chile.

Speaking with Artemis in a recent video interview, Jorge Familiar, Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank explained that client country demand for catastrophe bonds and risk management arrangements will likely rise, while he also expects that markets will be there to support these issuances.

The government of Jamaica is keen to share its experience as a catastrophe bond sponsor and wants to encourage other nations in the region to consider joining it in sponsoring a Caribbean catastrophe bond, to cover multiple countries, a report states.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the governments of Colombia and Peru and also Caribbean nations, are among those considering sponsoring World Bank facilitated catastrophe bonds, as activity in the market continues to pick up.