Promotional mandate
Rentenbank is a promotional bank that operates throughout Germany. According to Rentenbank’s Governing Law, its mission is to promote agriculture along with related upstream and downstream industries, as well as rural areas in general. The Bank’s business activity is aligned with this promotional mandate and its business model is defined by the framework established in Rentenbank’s Governing Law and Articles of Incorporation.
As a promotional bank for agribusiness and rural areas, Rentenbank provides earmarked funds for a wide range of investments and initiatives. It grants its special promotional loans to local banks in a competitively neutral way to fund projects in Germany. The loans are granted to enterprises in the sectors of agriculture and forestry, viticulture and horticulture, and aquaculture and fisheries. Rentenbank also promotes projects in the food industry and other industries upstream and downstream of agriculture, as well as investments in renewable energy and infrastructure projects in rural areas. Furthermore, the Bank carries out promotional activities on behalf of the German federal government and state governments (mandate business). The appropriation of profit is aligned with the promotional mandate: One half the distributable profit is allocated to Rentenbank’s Promotional Fund and the other half to the Federal Republic of Germany’s Special-Purpose Fund Administered by Rentenbank. The Special-Purpose Fund is used to promote innovation in agriculture on the basis of the guidelines set out by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, BMEL). Rentenbank also promotes innovative business models by investing in venture capital funds that provide targeted financing to start-ups in the areas of ag-tech and food-tech and help them establish themselves in the market. Moreover, the Bank provides funding to banks, savings banks, and local authorities operating in rural areas, also by purchasing registered bonds, promissory note bonds, and securities.