Finnfund (Finland)
- Score:
- 35.0
- Position:
- 10 / 22 (Non-sovereign)
Overview
The Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd (Finnfund), is Finland’s development finance institution that provides long-term investment loans and risk capital to private projects in developing markets. It was founded in 1980, and its ownership is split between the Finnish State with majority shares (95.7%), Finnvera (4.2%), and the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) (0.1%). Finnfund is a member of the European Development Finance Institutions Association (EDFI).
Analysis
Finnfund ranked 10th overall out of the 22 non-sovereign institutions assessed, scoring 35 out of 100. This marks an improvement from its performance in 2023 when it ranked 15th and scored 24.4. A key improvement across the board was Finnfund’s new bulk download export of investment data, which improved its format score throughout the assessment. However, Finnfund’s performance continued to be negatively affected due to the fact that it does not publish to the IATI Standard. Finnfund ranked relatively well in the Financial Information and Financial Intermediaries (FI) and Sub-Investments components.
In the Core Information component, Finnfund came 14th of 22, scoring 10.71 and slightly dropping in ranking from its position as 12th in 2023. It improved on the accessibility indicator, now scoring 100 per cent. New disclosures included unique identifier and last update date. However, Finnfund stopped disclosing domicile and E&S risk category in the 2025 assessment.
Finnfund ranked joint 14th in the Impact Management component, scoring 7.25 out of 25 and improving from its position of 16th in 2023. It continued to score 100 per cent on the impact measurement approach indicator and continued not to score for evaluations, additionality statement, activity indicators/metrics and results.
In the ESG and Accountability to Communities component, Finnfund came joint 14th with 8.5 out of 30, marking a slight drop from 2023 where it ranked joint 13th. Its performance stayed exactly the same across all indicators in this component. It scored 100 per cent for its E&S and project-level grievance (PGM) community disclosure policies. It also scored points for E&S global disclosure policy. Finnfund does not have an independent accountability mechanism (IAM), therefore did not score for any of the indicators relevant to that. It continued not to score for any project-level indicators in this component, including summary of E&S risks, E&S documentation and assurance of community disclosure.
Finnfund scored 4.75 out of 10 in the Financial Information component, which was 6th out of 22. This is a significant improvement from when it came joint last in 2023. It saw improvements across the currency of investment and concessionality indicators and scored on the new climate finance methodology indicator. However, Finnfund continued not to score for repeat investment, co-financing, mobilisation and instrument-specific disclosure. It also did not score for the new project-level climate finance indicator.
In the Financial Intermediary (FI) Sub-Investments component, Finnfund came joint 2nd, scoring 3.75 out of 10 and maintaining its 2023 position. Its performance improved through the consistent definition of use of funds for banks at the project level. Notably, Finnfund was one of only four non-sovereign DFIs to receive a score for having a policy on FI sub-investment disclosure, disclosing private equity fund sub-investments, and defining use of funds for banks at the project level.
Recommendations
- Finnfund should review its disclosure policy in line with industry best practices and the DFI Transparency Tool.
- It should become an IATI publisher and disclose all investments to the IATI Standard.
- Finnfund should include more data points in its bulk download file that it already publishes elsewhere, including signature date and last update date.
- Finnfund should disclose further Core Information data including sub-national location, domicile, sub-sector, disbursement, funding source, E&S risk category, disclosure date and approval date.
- It should create a policy on the evaluation of investments and disclose the evaluations it conducts.
- Finnfund should disclose project-level Impact Management indicators, including additionality statements, activity indicators/metrics and results.
- It should develop an early disclosure policy covering, at a minimum, high-risk projects and disclose investments in line with the policy.
- Finnfund should create an independent accountability mechanism (IAM), following best practice examples and incorporate disclosure requirements for an IAM into existing policies.
- It should disclose project-level ESG and Accountability to Communities indicators, including summary of E&S risks and E&S documentation.
- It should provide assurance of community disclosure for investments when disclosure is required. It should also state the main shareholders of client companies as well as disclosing a beneficial ownership statement.
- For Financial Information indicators it should consistently disclose whether an investment is a repeat investment. It should begin disclosing detailed co-financing data, mobilisation data, instrument-specific disclosure including share of equity and loan tenor, and project-level climate finance data.
- Finnfund should defined use of funds for FIs (banks) at organisational level and disclose in line with this. It should also align its policy for disclosing sub-investments with the DFI Transparency Tool disclose accordingly.