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Akbar Novruz

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The Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan has announced the list of systemically important banks for 2026, AzerNEWS reports.

The following banks have been designated as systemically important:

International Bank of Azerbaijan OJSC

Kapital Bank OJSC

PASHA Bank OJSC

Bank Respublika OJSC

Unibank KB OJSC

What makes a bank systemically important?

Systemically important banks are institutions whose stability is considered critical to the country’s financial system. Any potential difficulties faced by these banks could have a broad impact on the entire banking sector and overall financial stability.

The Central Bank assesses banks using a special methodology based on four key criteria:

Size - measured by total assets and the volume of the deposit portfolio.

Interconnectedness - evaluated through obligations and claims with other financial institutions.

Irreplaceability - assessed by payment transactions (including operations via the Azerbaijan Interbank Payment System - AZIPS), the number of depositors and clients, and the scale of branch and POS networks.

Complexity – measured by the volume of derivatives and trading securities in the bank’s portfolio.

A bank is classified as systemically important if its calculated index reaches 420 basis points or higher.

The list of systemically important banks is approved and officially announced by the Central Bank no later than March 1 each year.