In this new downturn, which has already lasted longer than the 2008/9 Financial Crisis, commodity prices have collapsed, hitting oil- exporting countries.

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have been among the hardest-hit economies in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

In mid-2014, Kazakhstan planned to restructure its banking sector by imposing greater capital requirements. The Central Bank wanted the country’s banks to

increase their capital from 10b to 100b tenge ($54m to $543m at the time).

But in August 2015 the Central Bank abandoned the tenge peg to the US dollar, allowing it to fall sharply.

This relieved pressure on its currency but knocked plans to increase capital requirements for banks.

Bank deposits in Kazakhstan are now insured by the government. If the Central Bank had pushed forward with its new capitalisation plan after ditching the tenge-US dollar peg it would have meant that smaller banks would have had to close. The government would then have been under pressure to repay customers who had lost savings. Kazakh officials dodged this by scrapping the plan.

Azerbaijan, by contrast, has pushed ahead with increasing capital requirements at banks despite a 35% fall in its currency over the past month. This has forced small banks to close and larger banks to merge.

All this before introducing universal insurance on deposits. Until now, only savers with up to 30,000 manat ($18,400) were insured.

Time will tell which of the two strategies pays off.