OREANDA-NEWS. On April 16, 2008 the Caspian Bank – one of the leading retail banks in Kazakhstan – has announced the results of its successful operations in 2007. The Caspian Bank’s profit grew more than 43%, assets grew 35%, and equity grew 51%, reported the press-centre of Caspian Bank.

”The conservative and quality growth strategy, adopted by the bank at the end of 2006, allowed us to yield good financial results in 2007 regardless of international markets trends”, Mikhail Lomtadze, Chairman of the Managing Board, said. “As we planned, our assets grew 35,4%, and the loan portfolio grew 53,3% versus prior year. The Caspian Bank supported the growing demand of the market for bank services by improving its product line. As a result, our net interest income grew 45,6%, bringing us almost 17b Tenge. This is the key ratio to us, for the shareholders of the Caspian Bank, represented by Private Equity Fund Baring Vostok and Kazakhstani businessman Vyacheslav Kim, focus on business efficiency rather than the size of assets”.  

As also seen from the last year results, the Caspian Bank maintained the significant indicative trend, with its interest income growing faster than operating expenses – 45,6% and 32,9%, respectively. These numbers indicate that the bank continues growing effectively i.e. it earns every further income at lower cost.

”This year the rate of growth of the entire banking sector will be slower reaching 15%, and bearing in mind the fact that at the end of 2006 the 35-percent annual growth we planned as part of the development strategy to 2009 was supported by financial resources, this year the Caspian Bank will become one of the fast growing Kazakhstani banks”, Mr. Lomtadze says. “It is important to us to be better represented in the retail sector. However, quality of growth and efficiency are our strategic priorities”.

The Caspian Bank’s development strategy will not change in 2008. Top managers plan to focus on efficiency improvements, controlled growth and better quality of service. All these efforts aim at making the Caspian Bank the best in terms of financing and servicing individuals and small and medium-sized businesses.

“What is also remarkable about the last year is increase in equity. The Caspian Bank’s equity grew 50,9%, reaching 41b Tenge. The shareholders decided that the profit would be invested in the development of the bank and that dividends would not be distributed”, Vyacheslav Kim, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Caspian Bank, added. “Capital adequacy ratio reached 23% that made our bank one of the best capitalised banks not only in Kazakhstan but in CIS”. 

Growing confidence the public has in the bank is what matters to the bankers in addition to efficiency and capital. And continuous increase in the number of individual deposits that started in Kazakhstan in the middle of the last year is the major indication of confidence the Kazakhstanis have in the bank. At the end of 2007 individual deposits amounted to 31,5b Tenge, and since the beginning of this year Kazakhstanis have already deposited around 4b Tenge to the bank. And the number of deposits keeps increasing”, Mr. Lomtadze says.