Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The International Bank of Azerbaijan -- a major state-owned bank holding at least 40 percent of all bank assets in the country - was named as "The Bank of the Year" by the British magazine "The Banker".

The British magazine underlined successful recapitalization and introduction of Islam banking among the IBA advantages.

Head of IBA Representative office in London Rufat Imamverdiyev received the award at the ceremony held in London on November 28.

The IBA, established in 1992 as a successor of the Azerbaijani branch of Vnesheconombank, holds a leading position in the domestic banking sector. The main shareholder of the bank is the Azerbaijani government, which holds a 50.2 percent stake, and 49.8 percent is owned by private individuals and legal entities.

The Banker points out that growth of the IBA capital exceeded growth of its assets that allowed improving capital ratio and created the basement for increase of crediting. "It became one of the important competitive advantages of the IBA and significantly improved its financial stability. It allowed the Bank to increase the number of its active transactions, implement strategic initiatives in all directions of its activity including introduction of the up-to-date system of client interaction management."

The magazine emphasizes the fact that the IBA has improved the Corporate Business Department, upgraded and restructured sales and crediting procedures and improved service quality. Retail banking has also been upgraded; the Bank has introduced new products for improvement of investment banking quality. MBA is making stress at improvement of client service quality in all departments - a special standard has been created to control quality of service on a daily basis. The standards are being constantly improved to conform to the new requirements.

Today, IBA's authorized capital is 368 million manat.