An affine Gindikin-Karpelevich formula

In this paper we give an elementary proof of certain finiteness results about affine Kac-Moody groups over a local non-archimedian field K. Our results imply those proven earlier by Braverman-Kazhdan, Braverman-Finkelberg-Kazhdan and Gaussent-Rousseau using either algebraic geometry or a Kac-Moody version of the Bruhat-Tits building. The above finiteness results allow one to formulate an affine version of the Gindikin-Karpelevich formula, which coincides with the one discussed by Braverman-Finkelberg-Kazhdan in the case when K has positive characteristic. We deduce this formula from an affine version of the Macdonald formula for the spherical function, which will be proved in a subsequent publication.