Baku, Azerbaijan, June 21
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Azerbaijan’s Pasha Bank JSC doesn’t plan to enter Iranian market, said Taleh Kazimov, CEO and chairman of the bank’s Executive Board.
“Aside from Azerbaijan, we have started to operate in two countries – Turkey and Georgia – over the last nine years,” he said.
Currently, Pasha Bank mainly focuses on strengthening its activities in those three countries, therefore, during the strategic period, it doesn’t plan to enter new markets, added Kazimov.
He also noted that the bank doesn’t plan to significantly change its strategy in the near future.
"The bank will operate mainly in the corporate segment as before, but we also plan to start issuing consumer loans,” he said. “Currently, albeit in small volumes, we provide consumer lending. But we want this process to go mainly through the mobile application and we will start this process by late 2016.”
Pasha Bank is a leading corporate bank in Azerbaijan. The bank, founded in 2007, renders a range of corporate banking services, including issuing of loans, operations in the securities market, asset management, and treasury services.
Further speaking, Kazimov said that Pasha Bank has started to much less often participate in the foreign exchange rate auctions organized by the country’s Central Bank.
He noted that it is due to the stabilization of the market.
“We have started to buy currency mainly from our clients since late April and resell it. Therefore, we meet the demand of some of our clients with the supply from our other clients and we don’t have a great need to participate in the Central Bank’s auctions,” added Kazimov.
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan holds auctions twice a week. During those auctions, the Central Bank and the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) offer currency to banks. During the last auction, SOFAZ sold $50 million to 24 banks through the auction held by the Central Bank.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Anvar_Mammadov
