BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 7. The total Micro loan portfolio of Azerbaijan's AccessBank amounted to 475 million manat ($279.4 million) as of September 2022, Chairman of Board at AccessBank David Tsiklauri told Trend.
According to him, this indicator increased by 25 percent.
"AccessBank's loan portfolio is divided into micro and small credits as well as by industry. The bank is one of the largest banks in micro-agricultural lending. A third of the bank's Micro loan portfolio, or 175 million manat ($102.9 million) falls on agricultural lending," Tsiklauri said.
He noted that the bank serves for a number of large and medium-sized business entities.
"AccessBank began to develop lending to individuals starting from last year and about 25 percent of Bank’s total portfolio, which is around 140 million manat falls on their share. Moreover, the bank is one of the active banks in attracting deposits from individuals, and even stands out among the large banks of Azerbaijan for retail time deposits," Tsiklauri stated.
"The bank is planning to create necessary environment for the individuals so that that they not only open deposits in AccessBank but also generally carry out all the necessary banking operations with the bank. I consider lending to individuals one of the most competitive, because almost every bank is engaged in this, so offering supplemental and transactional services is what we aim to develop," Tsiklauri added.
He emphasized that AccessBanks' loan portfolio is increasing in annual as well as in quarterly and monthly terms.
"The size of business loans originated in a single month has more than doubled in August 2022 compared to the same month the previous year. I think that this type of lending will continue to grow in 2022 and 2023. AccessBank doesn't see near term risk deterioration that could force the bank to reconsider the issue of business lending, although we continue to observe global macro and geo-political events and will act accordingly should we think that those might have significant influence on Azerbaijan," he said.