OREANDA-NEWS. July 14, 2011. JSC "Danabank" has changed its name and from now on it is officially called JSC "Subsidiary Bank Punjab National Bank - Kazakhstan", or an abbreviated JSC SB PNB-Kazakhstan. The decision on renaming was taken on December 15, 2011 by the general meeting of Danabank shareholders following purchase by an Indian strategic investor represented by Punjab National Bank of the controlling stake in Danabank, reported the press-centre of KASE.

Danabank was founded in October 1992. Over more than 18 years the Bank has been successfully operating in the bank services market. Danabank is a universal financial institution rendering a broad range of financial services. Its main activity is financing of SME. Currently, the branch network includes five locations in Almaty, Taraz, Pavlodar, Karaganda and Astana.

Punjab National Bank (PNB) was founded on April 12, 1895 and never suffered operational losses over 116 years. Having reached the statuses of the largest nationalized bank, second largest state bank and third largest bank in terms of assets, PNB has now began expanding.

PNB has founded a subsidiary with 7 branches in Great Britain, a branch in Kabul (Afghanistan), 2 branches in Hong Kong, a branch in Dubai International Financial Center (Dubai), a joint-venture subsidiary in Bhutan, a joint-venture bank in Nepal, representative offices in Shanghai (China) and Oslo (Norway) supposed to be transformed into branches. Currently, PNB is preparing to open a representative office in Australia and a wholly owned subsidiary in Canada. Also opening of branches in Turkmenistan and Maldives is being considered.

PNB occupies 235th rank globally, according to the Banker's Almanac (2010). Merits of Punjab National Bank in the field of IT were many times marked by the Indian government, who declared PNB the "Best Technologic Bank of 2010", and also awarded it with the "Best use of technologies based on ICT (Information, Communication and Technology) for the benefit of clients".

In 1998 PNB opened its only representative office in CIS in Kazakhstan. Being confident about the country's economic growth and stable prospects for future, PNB decided to enhance its presence through investing in Danabank and supplying it with management experience, so that the bank could contribute to the Kazakh economy.

In accordance with the development strategy, the new joint-venture Bank will render high-quality financial services, and introduce modern banking experience. Also, Subsidiary Bank Punjab National Bank - Kazakhstan intends to focus on financing small and medium-sized enterprises in the Republic of Kazakhstan, in particular, agricultural projects. The Indian partner plans to use the Kazakh bank as a base for further expansion to other CIS countries.