Bradesco provides a comprehensive range of retail as well as wholesale financial products and services directly or through subsidiaries to 13 million clients, serviced by a network of 2,928 branches (figures as of September 30, 2002). The TFF transactions have been successful in convincing international banks with existing credit line authorizations to Brazilian banks to re-extend trade funding that had been withdrawn since earlier this year. Also, in many cases, lenders were able to "swap" upcoming maturities under existing trade finance facilities to Brazilian banks into the B loan structures afforded by these transactions – thereby locking in 12-month funding for the Brazilian banks that might have been withdrawn in the near future in the absence of the initiative. B Loan tranches have also included several "new money" commitments from international lenders that did not have existing credit exposures to the relevant Brazilian banks. The TFF transactions have demonstrated that the B loan structure is extremely effective in helping to address short-term Brazil country exposure concerns of international banks for an intrinsically low-risk asset class such as trade finance, and in complementing efforts on the part of the Brazilian government to persuade international lenders to leave in place credit lines currently outstanding to Brazilian financial institutions. IFC's role in the proposed Bradesco transaction is three-fold: (1) providing funds directly to Bradesco; mobilizing funding from commercial lenders into the B loan structure, which has (a) recently been withdrawn, (b) would likely be pulled in the near future, and/or (c) has an existing tenor which is extremely short by historical standards, and (3) making possible the participation of another multilateral institution in an A loan to Bradesco.