Kazakhstan’s Eurasian Bank JSC plans to increase the share of retail lending in its portfolio, the bank’s Chairman Pavel Loginov said.
“We are planning to change the bank’s balance structurally – retail and corporate businesses should be at 60% and 40% respectively by 2020,” Loginov said. “A year ago the ratio was 40% and 60%, but in 2018 the share of retail business has already reached 54%. We will grow in the retail business, but reduce the corporate business by writing off bad loans.”
“Presently, the bank’s task is not to increase the indicators, but to improve the quality of assets. Their volume, according to forecasts, should remain at the level of 1 trillion tenges,” he said.
Nevertheless, Loginov does not rule out their slight decrease, due to the fact that the bank is carrying out large-scale work on reserving bad assets.
“When it comes to the authorized capital, the bank currently does not see the need for its increase. Although the shareholders expressed their readiness to contribute if necessary. Last year as part of the Kazakh National Bank’s Program (Increasing financial sustainability of banking sector) our shareholders contributed 23.8 billion tenges and we received 150 billion tenges from the state within the framework of the program. Not to forget that these are paid and repayable funds. Currently the bank does not need additional capitalization,” the chairman of Eurasian Bank added.
Based in Kazakhstan, Eurasian Bank has been operating since 1994. The bank is one of the largest in the country and holds the ninth place in the country in terms of assets (about $2.69 billion) as of July 1.
Some 30 banks are functioning in Azerbaijan, 15 of which have foreign capital. (Trend/Business World Magazine)