Analysis: Azerbaijan's banking system developing despite challenges
By Trend
Despite all challenges, the general dynamics of the financial and banking system of Azerbaijan shows that it has demonstrated quite successful development trends in all the main financial elements - depth, stability, efficiency and inclusiveness over the past years, Ayaz Museyibov, Financial Analyst at the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication (CAERC), told Trend on Apr. 30.
“The country's banking sector, maintaining a moderate growth trend after the 2015 oil crisis, is currently in the phase of stabilization and development. So, the volume of deposits of individuals in banks in the current period exceeded 8.2 billion manat ($4.8 billion), and the total volume of deposits worth 24.9 billion manat ($16.4 billion). Thus, for both indicators, the negative trend of 2016-2017 has spilled over into growth dynamics over the past two years,” Museyibov noted.
The analyst added that the specific share of foreign currencies has almost halved compared to the crisis period (2015, 2016), and the growth tendency of the specific share of demand deposits has shown a tendency to stabilize indicators over the past year.
The de-dollarization processes on loan portfolios also reached 65 percent, an increase of 16 percentage points compared to 2016. The spread interest rate in both national and foreign currencies, which is one of the indicators of the effectiveness of the banking system, has stabilized at around four percent. The data on an analysis of World Bank also shows optimistic indicators of Azerbaijan in this direction compared with a number of post-Soviet countries (Kyrgyzstan - 17.1, Ukraine - 7.2).
The analyst also noted that with the strengthening of macroeconomic stability and the implementation of measures on improving financial system, the potential for further improvement in quality indicators will increase even more.
(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on Apr. 30)
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