The purpose of the Financial Soundness Indicators for Investment Climate Assessment is to present a birds eye view of the Georgia’s financial system, its’ standing relative to other countries in the world and the countries in Europe/Central Asia developing cohort. After the first round of successful cooperation between ISET Policy institute and ADB on the previous FSI project, ISET-PI was granted the second contract for conducting a joint study together with GeoStat and NBG.

The purpose of this report is to present the Financial Soundness Indicators (FSI) data in a way that is accessible and easy to interpret by a wide array of stakeholders, and help them analyze the economic implications underlying the FSI concepts.

The Georgian economy faces many challenges, not least of which is access to finance and the extremely high cost of financing private enterprises. With the cost of borrowing (real interest rate) reaching 17.3% on average in April 2013, businesses find it very difficult to function, let alone invest in innovative technologies, long-term growth, and development.

Georgia is among a few countries in the world that do not have a deposit insurance system in place. Does the country need to have such a system? Or is deposit insurance likely to do more harm than good? The answer is not as clear-cut as it may seem.

A long season of high-stakes elections in Georgia, Ukraine, and now the United States is finally over. Once the last campaign posters are taken down, we may as well start asking: now what?