Baku, Azerbaijan, June 9
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is offering to restructure the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) in line with internationally accepted principles to pave the way for transparent privatization of the bank in due course, Raja Almarzoqi, the chief of the IMF mission in Azerbaijan, told Trend.
Currently, the state's share in the IBA capital stands at 51.07 percent.
Almarzoqi said that today one of the priorities of Azerbaijan's financial sector is the reducing of IBA's share in the country's banking market, and noted that if the government doesn't cut its share, the financial sector may face a great risk.
In 2014, IBA's assets reached 8.8 billion Azerbaijani manats (increasing over the year by 22.7 percent), accounting for 34.9 percent of total assets of banks.
The bank's loan portfolio rose by 16.6 percent and in early 2015 it stood at 5.868 billion manats (the specific weight in the total volume of the banks' loan investments is 31.6 percent).
Over the year, the population's deposits in the IBA rose by 117.3 million manats up to 1.73 billion manats (with a specific weight of 24 percent).
The bank's incomes were 585.8 million manats. IBA's net profit in 2014 was 64.5 million manats.
The IBA was founded in January 1992. Its main shareholder is the Azerbaijani Finance Ministry on behalf of the government of Azerbaijan, which owns 51.07 percent of shares, while the remaining shares are held by private individuals and legal entities.
The official exchange rate as of June 9 is 1.0476 AZN/USD.
Edited by SI
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli