Financial Services Volunteer Corps - About

Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC) is a not-for-profit, public-private partnership whose mission is to help build the sound financial systems needed to support robust market economies in transitional and developing countries.  Sound financial infrastructure is essential to support private entrepreneurship, promote job creation, mobilize domestic savings, attract foreign investment, and create conditions that promote lasting economic opportunity.
FSVC was founded at Presidential initiative in 1990 by the late Cyrus Vance, former U.S. Secretary of State, and John Whitehead, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs.  FSVC’s Board is currently chaired by Mr. Whitehead.  Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is the Honorary Chairman of the Board.  John Walker, Chairman of Richina LLC and a leading international lawyer, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board.  FSVC’s President and CEO is Andrew Spindler.
FSVC’s core work concentrates on strengthening commercial banking systems, developing central bank capabilities, expanding access to finance, and building capital markets.  Major additional areas of work include the legal framework for the financial system, payments system development, insurance and pension reform, and the combating of money laundering and financial corruption. FSVC structures practical, results-oriented technical assistance and training missions staffed by senior financial sector practitioners who serve as unpaid volunteers.  Over the past twenty years, almost 8,500 experts from the international financial, legal, and regulatory communities have taken part in more than 2,500 FSVC missions, reaching more than 35,000 counterparts in over 50 developing and transition countries.  FSVC’s work in recent years has been focused in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Albania, and Russia and other CIS countries. FSVC’s demand-driven approach helps ensure that its work is highly relevant and valued by key reformers in the countries that seek its assistance.  By recruiting currently employed professionals at the peak of their careers to serve as volunteers, FSVC is able to provide technical assistance that is objective, independent, and state-of-the-art.  In addition, recipients of FSVC’s assistance develop valuable professional relationships with volunteers and establish institutional linkages with sponsoring institutions.  These linkages provide significant additional benefit to counterparts over the long term.  FSVC-arranged assistance is highly cost-effective:  since 1990, FSVC has leveraged approximately $90 million in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. State Department, and private sources to provide more than $210 million in technical assistance, principally through the donated services of volunteer experts.