Baku, Azerbaijan, April 26
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
Azerbaijan's Unibank intends to significantly expand lending to small, medium and micro-enterprises in Azerbaijan, the Bank's Chairman of Board Faig Huseynov told Trend.
"We plan to actively increase lending and significantly increase our profits this year compared to last year. A special focus will also be made on the return of bad loans," Huseynov said.
In 2015-2016, amid the difficult economic situation, many banks, including Unibank, suffered heavy losses. However, in 2017 the banks were able to restore their profitability. Thus, the profit of Unibank for this period amounted to four million manats. By the end of 1Q2018, the bank was able to increase its profit to 4.7 million manats. In addition, last year the Bank increased the number of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in the customer base by 25 percent.
Huseynov said, the trends observed in the country's economy and financial sector are very positive, and this contributes to the recovery of the banking sector.
"I think that last year the banks have already reached the "bottom" and are now beginning to rise gradually," he said.
Last year, Unibank also conducted active capitalization, increasing its share capital by 80 million manats. Trend was told that the bank does not plan to carry out additional capitalization this year.
"We do not see the need to increase capital, but in the future we plan to hold an IPO [initial public offering]. This issue is in our long-term perspective," Huseynov added.
Unibank was established in 2002 as a result of the merger of MBANK (established in 1992) and PROMTEXBANK (established in 1994). The Bank's shareholders include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the German Investment Corporation (DEG).
According to data as of the end of March 2018, the Bank's authorized capital amounted to almost 125.7 million manats.
The official exchange rate as of April 26 is 1.7 AZN/USD.