Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 17 / Trend A.Akhundov /
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) is confident about the country's largest bank International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) correcting the recent situation following a Moody's report and raising its ratings, Elman Rustamov, CEO of CBA told Trend.
In late November, the international rating agency Moody's Investors Service lowered the long term deposit ratings in the national currency MBA from Ba1 to Ba3. The long term deposit rating in foreign currency has been revised from level Ba2 to Ba3 and the long term senior unsecured debt rating in foreign currency has been revised from Ba1 to Ba3 with the long term subordinated debt in foreign currency changed from Ba2 to B1.
According to Moody's, despite a violation by IBA of a number of requirements set by the Central Bank, the bank still makes use of the 'normative patience' of the regulator.
"I do not think this is a correct judgment. IBA is a banking system accounting for over a third of the financial services market of the country. Yes, it has some deviations from regulatory standards. Every large bank may experience some problems from time to time. We can witness the joint work of regulators with such banks all over the world. The government in the face of the regulator is assisting these banks, action plans are being discussed and banks are given some time to correct the deviations. IBA is undergoing this process at the moment. I am confident about the bank correcting the situation and raising its ratings," Rustamov said.
The controlling interest (50.2 per cent) of the shares of IBA is publicly owned. As Central Bank's CEO mentioned to Trend, the regulator is very well aware of the situation with the IBA and steps taken by it for improvements.
"The fact the banks are being given some period of time for mobilising their resources in a post-crisis period is quite a normal practice exercised by all countries, including Europe, the USA and other developed markets. Banks were in a need of break after the crisis which was provided to them by regulators. We don't think we are experiencing some unbearable problems. What was mentioned by Moody's is not considered by us as a major problem," Orujov said.
