Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
The process of reducing the aggregate loan portfolio of Azerbaijani banks gradually stopped by the end of 2017, Asim Zulfugarov, deputy executive director and director of Strategic Services Department of Azerbaijan’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FIMSA), said at an annual meeting of Fitch Ratings in Baku March 1.
“The main reason for the sharp decline in the loan portfolio is the restructuring of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), but if we exclude the IBA, as well as the already closed Demirbank, we can see that the aggregate loan portfolio of Azerbaijani banks even grew insignificantly – by 0.1 percent by the end of 2017,” he noted.
According to the FIMSA, the aggregate loan portfolio of Azerbaijan’s banks amounted to 11.34 billion manats in 2017, having decreased by 28.5 percent compared to 2016.
The share of overdue loans in the loan portfolio of banks and non-banking credit organizations was 13.8 percent.
Thirty banks operate in Azerbaijan.
(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on March 1)