ASTANA, Kazakhstan, October 24. The assets of Kazakhstan's banks have increased by 4.8 percent since the beginning of the year and reached 46.7 trillion tenge (about $97.8 billion), said the Chairman of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market Madina Abylkasimova at a meeting with the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Trend reports.
Tokayev was informed about the development of a bill to resolve insolvent banks to tighten the responsibility of bank shareholders and limit government support. It is planned to introduce a legislative ban on the payment of dividends and bonuses to bank managers until the full repayment of state support funds.
The Chairman of the Agency reported on the stability of the banking sector and the growth of all financial indicators.
"Lending to the economy increased by 11.5 percent or up to 25.4 trillion tenge (about $53.2 billion), including loans to SMEs - by 9 percent or up to 6.6 trillion tenge (about $13.8 billion)," she said.
As Abylkasimova noted, in order to implement Tokayev’s instructions to stimulate business lending, new prudential measures have been developed on the capital, liquidity and collateral policy of banks, as well as increasing the lending activity of foreign subsidiary banks. It is planned to liberalize the requirements for the entry of foreign investors into the banking sector.
The head of the Agency informed Tokayev that as part of supervisory activities, based on the results of inspections, the activities of 29 microfinance organizations and 14 collection agencies were terminated, 90 supervisory measures were applied, and 338 fines were imposed for 105.3 million tenge ($220,504).
