Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Problem loans account for only three percent of overall lending made in Azerbaijan in 2017, Deputy Chief Executive Director and Director of the Strategic Services Department of the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan Asim Zulfugarov said Feb. 9 at a press conference dedicated to commissioning of the first private credit bureau in Azerbaijan.
He said that loans worth about 5 billion manats were issued in Azerbaijan in 2017.
He added that presently, the Centralized Credit Registry covers about 37 percent of Azerbaijan’s population.
“In total, the Centralized Credit Registry covers 2.7 million people,” Zulfugarov said. “The registry has information on 12 million loans. All this information will be transferred to the private credit bureau in accordance with the law.”
In turn, Zakir Nuriyev, head of the Azerbaijan Banks Association, expressed hope that banks will increase lending in 2018.
According to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, the country’s credit organizations reduced lending to 11.76 billion manats in 2017, which is 28.5 percent less than in 2016. The value of overdue loans for the year grew 10.5 percent, to 1.63 billion manats. The share of overdue loans in the loan portfolio of banks and non-bank credit organizations was 13.8 percent.
(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on Feb. 9)