Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 19 / Trend A. Akhundov /
The changes expected to occur in the Azerbaijani banking sector, will have no significant effect on the leasing companies' activity, chairman of the Azerbaijani Association of Leasing Companies (ALCA) and Joint Leasing director general Elchin Ahmadov said today.
According to the Central Bank board's decision as of July 25, the requirement for the minimum total capital of existing banks and authorised capital of newly established banks was increased from the current 10 million ($12.7 million) to 50 million manat ($63.7 million). The new requirement for the capitalisation of banks will come into force from January 1, 2014.
Many experts, including Moody's Investors Service international rating agency, expect significant reduction in the number of participants of the Azerbaijani banking system.
"Leasing companies have been created under the banks, which are meeting the new requirements now or have already announced that they will fulfill these requirements," he told Trend today. "Therefore, I do not think this will affect the quantitative staff of the leasing market players."
Regarding the interest rates offered by leasing companies, he said that they depend on the cost of capital in foreign and domestic markets.
"The Azerbaijani Central Bank and local banks have announced that they are trying to lower interest rates," he added. "As the leasing sector is one of the sectors using bank resources, I think we will also try to either keep these interest rates at the current level or reduce them."
The official exchange rate is 0.7848 AZN/USD on Nov. 19.