Tag Archives: banking

HSBC quits Kazakhstan

FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank HSBC agreed to sell its banking assets in Kazakhstan to Halyk Bank for $176m.

HSBC Kazakhstan employed about 600 people and operated six branches in the country.

The deal is important for two reasons. Although left unsaid, HSBC’s move out of Kazakhstan feels like a fairly damming verdict on the Kazakh economy. After all, HSBC spent 15 year working in Kazakhstan.

Perhaps Kazakhstan is not as rosy economically as government ministers would like the public to think.

Secondly, Halyk Bank, the purchaser of HSBC’s banking assets, is owned by the Dinara Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the daughter and son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

HSBC has generally had a re-think across the globe on its banking strategy. It pulled out of Russia in 2011 after only two years.

For Halyk Bank, the deal is something of a coup. Halyk Bank refused to buy the government’s stake in debt-ridden BTA Bank at the end of 2013, showing its independent thinking.

For Kazakhstan’s banking sector, the deal marks another round in the consolidation process. It also leaves Citi as the only Western bank with a major presence. All eyes are now on Citi and how long it lasts.

ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)

Rumours erode bank assets in Kazakhstan

FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kaspi Bank’s chairman, Mikhail Lomtadze, said customers withdrew 40b tenge ($216m) from their accounts after SMS messages wrongly claimed the Kazakh bank was going to collapse after the devaluation of the Tenge earlier this month. Mr Lomtadze said this equalled roughly a tenth of all the savings in Kaspi Bank.

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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

ATF Bank posts profit in Kazakhstan

FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — ATF Bank, bought by Kazakh investors from Italy’s Unicredit in 2013, made a profit last year for the first time since 2007, media reported. ATF Bank said it made a profit of $9.7m in 2013. The bank is now officially owned by Galymzhan Yessenov, son-in-law of the Almaty’s mayor Akhmetzhan Yessimov.

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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)

Rakishev becomes chairman of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank

FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kenes Rakishev, closely linked to members of the Kazakh elite, officially became chairman of BTA Bank. In December, Mr Rakishev agreed a deal worth nearly $1b with Kazkommertsbank to buy a 93% stake in BTA Bank from the government. BTA Bank, whose former chairman is Mukhtar Ablyazov who allegedly embezzled billions from the bank, has a high proportion of non-performing loans.

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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)

Kazkommertsbank and BTA sign deal in Kazakhstan

FEB. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s largest bank, and Kenes Rakishev, the son-in-law of the mayor of Astana, finalised a $1b deal to buy most of BTA Bank from the Kazakh government. The merger will happen by the end of the year, said Kaskommertsbank. The Kazakh government bought debt ridden BTA Bank in 2009.

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(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)

Share of savings in tenge drops in Kazakhstan

FEB. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The proportion of savings held in Kazakh tenge dropped to 62.6% in 2013 from 70.2% a year earlier, media quoted Kazakhstan’s Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov as saying. Mr Kelimbetov said that he wanted to boost this figure and reduce the amount of savings held in US dollars.

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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)

Azerbaijan warns banks over loans

JAN. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank issued a stern warning to its domestic banks to tighten up checks they carry out on consumers before issuing loans. The Azerbaijani economy is booming but increasingly unsecured loans could derail this growth.

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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)

Azerbaijan’s Central Bank worries over bad loans

JAN. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank ordered domestic banks to stop giving out loans to consumers so easily.

In a strongly worded statement, Azerbaijan’s Central Bank said lenders had not been doing enough due diligence on the financial security of consumers they were lending cash to.

“The Central Bank has assigned banks to intensify activities on issue of loans and enhance control over the field in line with responsible lending principles with an eye to further amplify banking sector’s financial sustainability,” the Azerbaijani Central Bank said.

The Central Bank appears to be reacting to a number of warnings from analysts who said that poorly secured loans and rising consumer debt are major risks to Azerbaijan’s economy.

Azerbaijan’s fuel-powered economy has picked up pace again since stumbling during the global economic crisis of 2008/9. In 2014, the economy is expected to grow by around 5%.

But overconfidence and slack controls threatens this economic growth. The Central Bank’s own figures showed that lending to consumers increased by nearly a third last year.

The Central Bank also appears to accuse commercial banks of aggressively selling loans to consumers and also warned them not to give out misleading information over the financial responsibilities of taking out loans.

(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)

Kazakh Alliance Bank undergoes “haircut”

JAN. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Alliance Bank asked its creditors to accept a so-called haircut to keep the bank solvent. In financial terms a haircut is when creditors agree to reduce repayments. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna and billionaire Bulat Utemuratov are Alliance Bank’s biggest stakeholders.

(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)

Samarkand Bank closes in Uzbekistan

JAN. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s financial authorities have shut Samarkand Bank for undisclosed violations, media reported, the second bank it has closed in the last two months.

After the authorities withdrew its trading license, Samarkand Bank, just like Credit Standard Bank before it, transferred its assets to the state-owned People’s Bank of Uzbekistan.

There is, typically, a political reason, for this sort of targeted action in Uzbekistan and in the case of Samarkand Bank, the clue is, possibly, in the name.

Shortly after the Uzbek authorities cut the license of Credit Standard Bank in November 2013, allegations appeared on Uzbek websites linking it to Gulnara Karimova, the embattled eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. She is currently locked in a power battle with rival clans and analysts said the closure of Credit Standard Bank may have been an attempt to undermine her.

The Karimovs are part of the Samarkand clan, named after Uzbekistan’s second city. Samarkand Bank’s name and origins suggest a link between the bank and the clan. Disbanding it will play into the hands of the so-called Tashkent clan, headed by various members of Uzbekistan’s intelligence service.

Once again, politics may well be the root cause of another banking closure in Uzbekistan.

(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)