Afghanistan Credit Guarantee Foundation ACGF

Chairman of the ACGF Board of Trustees:
Roger Thomas Piltzer (20260928)

Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) and the Afghan Credit Guarantee Foundation (ACGF) have signed a cooperationmemorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at strengthening the financial sector and expanding access to financial resources for small, medium and large businesses.

The agreement was signed during a ceremony at the DAB Supreme Council Hall, where DAB First Deputy Governor Sediqullah Khalid said such agreements create opportunities to provide suitable and diverse Islamic financial services to citizens and expand access to financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Khalid said that under the agreement, banks and financial institutions will initially receive technical and professional support. He added that five banks and one microfinance institution will receive grants worth around $1 million in the first phase to support financing for small and medium-sized businesses.

He said other banks and financial institutions that meet the required criteria would benefit from the grants and related facilities in later phases.

Khalid also said that attention would be given to facilitating the creation and financing of small businesses for Afghans returning from other countries.

Under the agreement, the two sides will cooperate on strengthening the financial sector, expanding access to financial resources for businesses, promoting Islamic financial services and building the capacity of financial institutions.

Technical and professional assistance, training programs and capacity-building opportunities will also be provided to banking and non-banking financial institutions.

Roger Thomas Piltzer, chairman of the ACGF Board of Trustees, also welcomed the agreement and stressed the importance of continuing and expanding cooperation with Da Afghanistan Bank.

The agreement aims to establish a framework for cooperation between the two sides to strengthen Afghanistan’s financial sector, expand access to Islamic financial services and provide financial resources for small and medium-sized businesses.

Background:

The Afghan Credit Guarantee Foundation (ACGF) is, despite its name, legally a German non-profit foundation operating in Afghanistan. It survived the Taliban takeover in 2021 and, by 2026, has again become quite active, with several new internationally funded programs.

Background and origins

ACGF grew out of the Credit Guarantee Facility for Afghanistan (CGF-A), established around 2004/05 with support from Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), USAID and DEG, the development-finance subsidiary of KfW.

The purpose was straightforward: Afghan banks were reluctant to lend to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The guarantee facility assumed part of the credit risk, making such lending more attractive to banks. OECD and World Bank documentation confirms this history. 

In September 2014, the program was institutionalized as the:

Afghan Credit Guarantee Foundation (ACGF)

ACGF is legally a German charitable foundation under private law, headquartered in Cologne, Germany. The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia continues to list it as a recognized foundation.

Key people

The most important names in the present structure are:

• Bernd Leidner — Chairman/CEO. He has been involved with the Afghan credit-guarantee program since approximately 2005 and became a member of ACGF's management board when the foundation was created in 2014.
• Dirk Josef Thiesen — Vice Chairman. He has also served on the management board since 2014 and is particularly associated with finance, risk management, compliance and administration.
• Daniel Jobmann — Senior Manager Finance & Controlling, part of the Cologne management structure.
• Roger Peltzer — Chairman of the Board of Trustees since December 2024. Peltzer has a DEG background and was involved with ACGF's development.
• Bibiana Bolsenkötter — Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees since June 2025.
• Frances Mys — Board of Trustees member.

ACGF's governance information confirms these positions. 

Presence in Afghanistan

Historically, ACGF conducted much of its Afghan activity through its wholly owned subsidiary:

SME Client Support Afghanistan LLC (SCSA).

SCSA was not a bank. It provided services such as credit assessment, monitoring, technical assistance to partner financial institutions and examination of guarantee claims.

More recently ACGF has also established a Kabul branch.

Importantly, the current Afghan Ministry of Economy NGO register lists:

No. 525 — Afghan Credit Guarantee Foundation — ACTIVE

with the sector identified as Private Sector Development.

The responsible person shown in the Afghan register as "Dirk Yusuf" appears to refer to Dirk Josef Thiesen. 

Thus ACGF is currently authorized to operate under the Taliban administration, but this does not make it a Taliban organization. Its legal and governance structure remains German.

Who has funded ACGF?

Its institutional profile identifies substantial funding from international donors. By mid-2025 this included approximately:

These figures relate to different programs and periods and therefore should not simply be added together as a measure of ACGF's current assets. 

What happened after the Taliban takeover?

The August 2021 takeover disrupted ACGF considerably. Some internationally financed programs were suspended.

However, ACGF subsequently resumed and expanded operations.

One particularly important development came on 28 January 2026, when the European Union and ACGF announced MALA II — MSME Access to Finance for Livelihoods in Afghanistan.

The EU committed €15 million for 2026–2029. The program targets micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, including agriculture, returnees, green finance and women-owned or women-led businesses. 

ACGF also works with UNDP/UNCDF on Sharia-compliant portfolio guarantees and participates in the World Bank/Afghanistan Resilience Trust Fund EMERGe program.

Afghan partner banks

Recent ACGF material identifies several important financial partners, including:

Afghanistan International Bank (AIB)
First MicroFinanceBank Afghanistan (FMFB-A)
Ghazanfar Bank
OXUS Afghanistan

The basic mechanism is important.

Suppose an Afghan bank considers lending $100,000 to an Afghan company. ACGF can guarantee an agreed portion of the bank's exposure. The bank therefore carries less risk and may provide financing to a business that otherwise would not qualify.

ACGF itself is therefore not an Afghan commercial bank and generally does not function as a conventional direct lender.

Relationship with the Taliban

There is  no substantiated evidence that the Taliban control ACGF, nor evidence that Taliban officials sit on its German management board or Board of Trustees.

There is nevertheless unavoidable interaction with Taliban-controlled institutions. ACGF must be registered with the Afghan Ministry of Economy and its Afghan operations take place within the present regulatory environment.

World Bank/ARTF financing after 2021 has deliberately been structured to provide assistance to Afghanistan outside the control of the Taliban interim administration. 

This distinction matters:

Operating legally in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan ≠ being controlled by the Taliban.

Whether individual borrowers, partner institutions or ultimate beneficiaries have problematic political connections is a separate due-diligence question.

A particularly interesting development in 2026

ACGF appears to be considering an expansion beyond traditional SME guarantees into correspondent banking and trade finance.

At a Dubai conference in January 2026, Bernd Leidner discussed:

"Correspondent Banking & Trade Finance with Afghanistan."

One concept is to use guarantees to reduce the risk faced by foreign banks dealing with Afghan financial institutions and potentially substitute guarantees for some of the large cash margins required from Afghan importers.

If implemented on a meaningful scale, this would represent an important evolution:

2005–2021: primarily SME credit guarantees
→ 2022–2025: reconstruction of MSME financing
→ 2026 onward: potentially trade finance and international banking connectivity.

Institutional structure in simplified form

The structure can be represented as:

Germany — BMZ / DEG
↓
ACGF Foundation, Cologne
Bernd Leidner / Dirk Josef Thiesen
↓
ACGF Kabul Branch + SCSA
↓
AIB / FMFB-A / Ghazanfar / OXUS and other financial institutions
↓
Afghan MSMEs and borrowers

Alongside this structure are international funding/program relationships involving the EU, World Bank/ARTF, UNDP, UNCDF and KfW.

The key finding is therefore that ACGF is not a new post-2021 Afghan institution. It is the successor to a German/US-supported credit-guarantee mechanism dating back roughly two decades. It survived the collapse of the Islamic Republic and is now again operating in Afghanistan with international donor financing while its principal governance remains in Germany.

Afghanistan Credit Guarantee Foundation ACGF is a charitable foundation aiming at strengthening the private sector by enhancing access to finance for Afghan micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). To this end, ACGF offers credit guarantees and comprehensive technical assistance (TA) to effectively mitigate risks and to build capacity of financial institutions for MSMElending. Further, ACGF is dedicated to offering direct support services to MSME, including matching grants and business development services. The foundation was established in 2014 with support from the German government, building on a programme launched in 2004 with backing from Germany and the United States to improve Afghan businesses’ access to bank credit.

Since August 2021, ACGF has adapted to the evolving landscape in Afghanistan by transitioning to Sharia-compliant guarantees. Despite numerous challenges, ACGF has remained committed to its mission, effectively managing existing guarantees and ensuring continued support for its PIs. In December 2022, ACGF signed the MALA project contract with the European Union, marking the restart of guarantee operations in 2023. In 2024, ACGF signed the EMERGe project with the World Bank  to enhance financial institutions’ capacity and MSMEs access to finance.

ACGF remains committed to its mandate, using credit guarantees as vital tools for mitigating credit risks, providing technical assistance, and offering grants to promising businesses. In Afghanistan’s current situation, ACGF’s support for the private sector is crucial for job retention, income stability, and economic resilience.(20260722)

The Taliban central bank said on Monday, 20 July, 2026, that its deputy governor, Sediqullah Khalid, met Dirk Joseph Thyssen, deputy head of the Afghanistan Credit Guarantee Foundation, in Kabul.