ECB is basically a loan availed by an Indian entity from a nonresident lender. Most of these loans are provided by foreign commercial banks and other institutions. It is a loan availed of from non-resident lenders with a minimum average maturity of 3 years.

External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) includes commercial bank loans, buyers' credit, suppliers' credit, securitized instruments such as Floating Rate Notes and Fixed Rate Bonds etc., credit from official export credit agencies and commercial borrowings from Multilateral Financial Institutions. ECBs are being permitted by the Government as a source of finance for Indian Corporate for expansion of existing capacity as well as for fresh investment. Following are the advantages of ECBs.

Advantages of ECBs :

• ECBs provide opportunity to borrow large volume of funds
• The funds are available for relatively long term
• Interest rate are also lower compared to domestic funds
• ECBs are in the form of foreign currencies. Hence, they enable the corporate to have foreign currency to meet the import of machineries etc.
• Corporate can raise ECBs from internationally recognised sources such as banks, export credit agencies, international capital markets etc.