Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 24 / Trend J. Nasibova /
The number of banks in the CIS will decline, while financial markets will grow, General Secretary of the Banking Association for Central and Eastern Europe (BACEE) Istvan Lengyel told Trend today.
"There is a process of reducing the relative role of banks in financing in the world, but the figure is about 90 percent in the CIS," he said. "I think the trend will lead to the growth of financial markets and financial mediators and the assets of the banks will also increase."
He said that the share of banks in financial assets is only 20 percent in the U.S., while in the EU countries - 50 percent.
Baku Interbank Currency Exchange (BBVB) manager Farhad Amirbayov said that the financial markets are growing now or at least they do not fall due to emissive money given by the central banks of several countries. However, the emission pumping did not "include" the economic growth.
"As for Azerbaijan, I think that there are good development prospects in the foreign currency market and the monetary market," he said. "The corporate bond market may be expanded as an alternative to bank lending."
However, one should not wait for a liquid market of shares soon. There is a liquid market of shares only in Russia among CIS countries. It mainly consists of the shares of companies extracting natural resources and organizations of the financial sector.
"One must expect more requirements for the quality of corporate governance in general, and the risk management in particular after the Azerbaijani Central Bank increases the number of requirements for the amount of the banks' capital [the minimum capital of banks must be increased five-fold - to 50 million manat by January 1, 2014]," he said. "Sometimes shareholders must decide whether to increase the bank's capital taking into account acting managers or it is time for great changes."
He said that the ability of professional managing the company is important, rather than the amount of the bank's capital.
There are 43 banks in Azerbaijan. One can expect a significant reduction in the number of banks within new requirements for the banks' capitalization, as some banks have already started to discuss asset merger.
