Default and recovery statistics : private and public lending 1994-2023

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium was established in 2009 as a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation to pool credit risk data. The GEMs database is designed to support technical cooperation between international institutions and catalyse investments in emerging markets. GEMs comprises 26 member multilateral development banks and development finance institutions with business activities in emerging markets and developing economies. This report provides insights into the dataset composition for private and public lending. It offers statistics with a much wider scope than previous editions, delving into the details of the dataset and showcasing the default and recovery rates along various dimensions: Default and recovery rates analysis: The report provides detailed insights into default and recovery rates for private and public lending. Private counterparts have an overall default rate of 3.56%, while public counterparts have a lower rate of 2.59%. Recovery rates for private contracts average 72.2%, whereas public contracts average 85.9%. Trends and distributions: Default rates peaked in the late 1990s, with private counterparts reaching 8.6% in 1998 and public counterparts 7.8% in 1999. The report notes spikes in default rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recovery rate distributions show that over half of the defaulted contracts have recovery rates greater than 90%. Time to resolution: The time to resolve defaults shows that 67% of private counterpart defaults and 61% of public counterpart defaults are resolved within four years