Azerbaijan, Baku, 14 October / Trend corr. N.Ismayilova, I.Khalilova /The American Citibank plans to extend its activity in Azerbaijan's bank market. Bank implements the purchase of assets in the bank market in Azerbaijan. The information was released by a financial source.
The name of the bank, which Citibank plans to be the shareholder, has not been announced.
At present, the representative of the Turkish Citibank JSC, which started activity in the country in May 2008, has been functioning in Azerbaijan.
The American bank opened its representative in Azerbaijan via the Turkish office. Citibank applied to the National Bank in November 2007. On 18 February 2008, the management board of the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) approved the opening of bank's representative in Azerbaijan.
Citibank has announced its wide plans in the country. However, then the bank was planning to carry out bank operations through transformation of the representative into branch.
Currently, the representative of two banks- Latvian Parex Bank and German Commerz Bank, have been functioning in the country.
Foreign banks are interested in entering into the financial market in Azerbaijan. The interest to acquire a share in Azerbaijani local banks have been expressed by the French Societe General, Russian Vneshtorgbank (bank applied to NBA to purchase a control share package in AF Bank), and the Georgian TBC Bank has already reached a deal on purchasing of 75% shares in the non-bank SOA Credit organization (now TBC Credit).
At present, there are 45 banks and 21 banks with foreign shareholding in Azerbaijan.
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