Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 2 / Trend A. Akhundov /
The quality of the microfinance organisations loan portfolio is being improved in Azerbaijan, executive director of the Azerbaijan Microfinance Association Jhale Hajiyeva told Trend on Tuesday.
"Historically, bad loans accounted for less than one per cent of the entire microfinance portfolio in Azerbaijan," she said. "The rate was 4-4.5 per cent after the crisis in 2009-2010. Now we see that less than one per cent of the portfolio is under the risk."
According to her, today the share of bad micro-loans in the non-bank credit organisations and banks ranges from zero to more than two per cent.
"The microfinance loan rate is less in the banks compared to other types of loans," she added. "After the second wave of the crisis passed, attention to the quality of the loan portfolio increased."
According to her, expanding the microfinance organisations opportunities for the Central Credit Register in this sphere has significantly improved the situation.
"Micro-loans are mainly issued under warrant, rather than bail," he said. "While delivering a loan, the organisation must check the credit history of the borrower, as well as three to four guarantors.
"Therefore, we welcome the Central Bank reducing the value of one query up to one manat. Now we are trying to motivate all organisations with whom we are communicating asking they make changes to their credit policy and check all their loans regardless of the amount. Currently in most cases, if the loan amount is less than 2000 manat, they do not check the credit history, although bad loans form small loans."
The official exchange rate is 0,7845 AZN/USD on Oct. 2.
