After the drought, the flood is hitting Kazakhstan's banking sector. A number of the country's largest banks now have loan-to-value ratios of less than 100%, have reduced the size of their loan books and foreign liabilities, and are increasingly worried about how to put their liquidity to work and earn a return.
Of course, it is a rather selective flood. Two of the country's erstwhile top four banks, BTA and Alliance, have had to be bought out by national wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna and restructure their debts. Temirbank, a retail banking specialist previously owned by BTA, has been separated and restructured because the parent company does not have the funds to recapitalise it.
