The OeKB Group's services are diverse, but share roles in common: They help drive the success of our customers and contribute to sustainable economic and social development.
A broad range of capabilities supporting the private and public sector
Since as long ago as 1946, the OeKB Group has been strengthening Austria's economy with many services for small, medium-sized and large companies as well as for the Austrian federal government, giving the Group a special position as a central financial services provider. With its wide range of expertise, the OeKB Group focuses on five main service areas:
- Export Services
- Capital Market Services
- Energy Market Services
- Development Financing
- Tourism Services
As a public-private partnership, the OeKB Group seamlessly integrates its role as a private enterprise with its official mandate from the Republic of Austria.
OeKB in a nutshell (in German only)
Essential services for business and markets
The OeKB Group provides many services that promote economic growth and strengthen Austrian businesses for competition in global markets through its five major business units and its subsidiaries and holdings.
The subsidiaries and holdings include the development bank Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank AG, the credit insurer Acredia Versicherung AG, the central securities depository OeKB CSD GmbH, the central counterparty CCP Austria Abwicklungsstelle für Börsengeschäfte GmbH, and the Austrian Bank for Tourism Development Österreichische Hotel- und Tourismusbank Gesellschaft m.b.H (OeHT).
An overview of the OeKB Group's business units
Export Services: The safe way to international success
Exports and investing abroad help Austrian companies grow while safeguarding jobs at home. On behalf of the Republic of Austria, OeKB issues export guarantees to cover payment defaults abroad. Acredia covers short-term marketable export credit risks. Through commercial banks, which partner with OeKB's Export Services, small, medium-sized and large companies receive attractive financing solutions to support their growth – for export transactions, equity funding abroad, or domestic investments.
Capital Market Services: Everything related to securities
All Austrian securities interact with the OeKB Group’s Capital Market Services at multiple points in their lifecycle. Services include a number of statutory functions, such as operating the legal notification office under the Austrian Capital Markets Act (KMG) and the auctioning of Austrian government bonds. All market participants can benefit from our expert capital market service offering, which includes the provision of comprehensive information on domestic and foreign securities, managing the national ISIN allocation, and securities custody.
Energy Market Services: Clearing services for electricity and gas
With its Energy Market Services, the OeKB Group applies its decades of expertise in financial clearing and risk management to support the liberalised Austrian energy market: OeKB verifies the creditworthiness of market participants and handles the financial clearing, payment processing and risk management. As a General Clearing Member of the clearing house European Commodity Clearing, the Energy Market Services business unit offers Non-Clearing Members its services for spot trading of electricity and gas.
Development financing: For sustainable growth
As the official development bank for the Republic of Austria, the OeKB subsidiary, Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB), finances investments of private companies in developing and emerging countries, where access to financial products is often lacking. This generates inclusive and sustainable growth intended to help improve the living standards of people in these countries. Supplementary, project-related OeEB programmes strengthen the development impact of the projects.
In selected developing and emerging countries, OeKB can offer financing for projects meeting specific requirements, through low-interest loans (soft loans) from the Austrian Ministry of Finance, when the project is not necessarily commercially viable but nevertheless contributes to the development of the recipient country.
Tourism financing: For a strong tourism industry
Tourism is an important economic sector for Austria. The OeKB Group offers a variety of services to support companies in the tourism and leisure industry, helping them grow and remain competitive.
Österreichische Hotel- und Tourismusbank (OeHT, the Austrian Bank for Tourism Development) has been the national point of contact for funding and financing for the tourism and leisure industry since 1947. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, OeHT manages the federal funding of commercial tourism development. The range of funding products includes subsidised financing, guarantees and grants.
OeKB provides tailor-made financing for tourism businesses with a high proportion of foreign overnight guests.
Frequently Asked Questions
The broad range of services is practical because all of the services have something in common: they promote economic growth and strengthen the Austrian economy in global competition - for example, by covering risks in export business, offering attractive financing, providing approved infrastructure and reliable data for the capital market.
In OeKB Group, Acredia Versicherung AG completes the services for foreign businesses. OeKB Group supports sustainable private sector projects in developing and emerging market countries jointly with the Development Bank of Austria (OeEB). Österreichische Hotel- und Tourismusbank (OeHT) handles the federal funding of commercial tourism on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism. As the Austrian central counterparty, the CCP Austria Abwicklungsstelle für Börsengeschäfte GmbH (CCP.A) performs an important function in the Austrian capital market, as does OeKB CSD GmbH, which is Austria’s central holder of securities.
No, OeKB is 100% privately owned. The owners are commercial banks headquartered in Austria.
The ownership structure of OeKB
However, OeKB carries out some tasks for the Republic of Austria, For instance, it processes the export guarantees for the federation and handles government bond auctions for the state.
Even if the name Oesterreichische Kontrollbank leads one to believe otherwise, OeKB has no supervisory or controlling function for Austrian banks. These tasks are done by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) which is the independent regulatory authority for Austria's financial market not subject to instruction.
OeKB is a special institution that supports the export economy and capital market with its services and not a credit institution that provides the conventional services for payments, loans and capital transactions. The answer to why OeKB is called the Austrian Control Bank can be found in its history.
No, this is done by commercial banks. OeKB only holds accounts for business customers. These are used exclusively for clearing services from the OeKB Group, for example, in export financing or within the framework of services from OeKB CSD GmbH.
Loans for exports or foreign investments are not issued by OeKB directly. It makes the capital available to the banks, which transfer it to the exporters or foreign investors, and which assumes the bank processing of guarantees for export businesses as the federally authorised agent.
