Loans and Investments

Deutsche Bank’s Community Development Finance Group (CDFG) deploys the Bank’s balance sheet in the service of bringing capital to distressed communities.  CDFG applies the Bank’s rigorous credit standards to all of its transactions, identifying opportunities where market forces can make a positive social impact.  These loans and investments support community economic development with a focus on developing quality affordable housing, by investing in Low Income Housing Tax Credit funds and working with intermediaries and other financial institutions to extend credit for predevelopment, property acquisition and construction financing.  These transactions often involve the public sector as a key partner in catalyzing market forces.

Deutsche Bank often works through community development financial intermediaries (CDFIs) that bring a keen knowledge of local communities and can redeploy capital in retail loans to individual and local institutional consumers.  Many of these intermediary organizations operate in advance of conventional lenders and play an important role in proving the viability of new markets. The Bank also invests in double bottom line private equity funds that target job creation initiatives in low- and moderate-income communities.

Increasingly, the Bank identifies opportunities where financing the emerging green economy intersects with community economic development, for example, preserving affordable housing through energy efficiency retrofits.  Such strategies address climate change while improving the health and affordability of low- and moderate-income communities.