FMSB: Banking sector ends January-February with profit of 50M manats
By Amina Nazarli
The banking sector of Azerbaijan has ended the first two months of 2017 with a net profit of 50 million manats ($29.22 million), reads a report released by Azerbaijan’s Financial Market Supervisory Body (FMSB).
Some 32 banks are currently operating in the country.
The FMSB announced that the interest income of the banks amounted to 348.8 million manats ($204.19 million) in January-February 2017, including 258.6 million ($151 million) on loans. Non-interest income of the banks for two months amounted to 163.8 million manats ($95.6 million).
In general, the total net operating profit of the banks was 197.3 million manat ($95.6 million) in January-February 2017. During the reporting period, the banks directed 143.6 million manat ($83 million) for formation of reserves in order to cover possible losses on the assets.
The total volume of capital of the banking sector in February 2017 amounted to almost 2.65 billion manats ($1.55 million).
Meanwhile, the level of banks capitalization increased by 38.7
percent in January-February 2017 compared to 2016.
The loan portfolio of the banks reached 15.4 billion manat (9.03
billion) at the end of the 2016. The deposit portfolio of the
banking sector in the reporting period amounted to 16.21 billion
manat ($9.51 billion), including 7.08 billion manat ($4.15 billion)
for individual deposits, and 9.13 billion manat ($5.35 billion) for
legal entities deposits.
The FMSB also revealed that sixteen of Azerbaijani banks have foreign capital.
The share of foreign shareholders in seven of them exceeds 50 percent of the authorized capital, according to the FMSB.
There are two branches of foreign banks – Bank Melli Iran and National Bank of Pakistan – in Azerbaijan.
In February, 563 branches and 135 bank departments operated in Azerbaijan, as compared to 32 banks with 569 branches and 132 departments in late January.
The report further reads that 16,662 people worked in Azerbaijan’s banking sector as of late February compared to 16,928 people as of late January and 16,947 in early January 2017. The number of employees of the banking sector decreased by 1.7 percent since the beginning of 2017.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
Twitter: @amina_nazarli
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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