Mortgage Loan Minimum Standards Manual of April 2004. This manual has been written with the express intention that all banks and other financial institutions that received mortgage lines of credit from EBRD will comply with the minimum standards and best practices in the manual to ensure that the mortgages were written can be included in either Mortgage Bond or Mortgage-Backed Securities’ issues. Financial Institutions are recommended to apply the minimum standards and best practices for these reasons. The information contained within this manual is based on the research undertaken by the writers and the standards that they have experienced in western European Banks. It is not intended to be definitive and there is no doubt that further improvements to mortgage lending practices will be identified as banks3 further develop this business.