SOE exposure underpins capital buffers at Uzbek banks

Uzbekistan’s largest state-related banks have maintained steady capital buffers during the pandemic, which has supported their resilience.

Tier 1 capital at National Bank of Uzbekistan, the country’s largest lender, and second largest lender Uzpromstroybank dipped slightly in 2020, to $1.16bn and $524.7m, respectively; whereas, Asaka Bank and Agrobank's Tier 1 capital rose a little, to $493.6m and $471.5m, according to The Banker Database.

The country’s big lenders have the bulk of their loan books based on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and subsidised mortgages, with less loans to small and medium-sized enterprises and private entrepreneurs. Therefore, according to S&P Global, the funding profiles of Uzbekistan’s largest players are likely to remain stable, supported by deposits from SOEs and government entities.

“We anticipate that SOEs will continue to benefit from government support and that subsidised mortgages will continue to demonstrate greater resilience than loans to small private businesses and unsecured retail loans,” says Victor Nikolskiy, an analyst at S&P Global.

Last year, Asaka Bank saw an impressive improvement in its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio, as it dropped from 13.6% in 2019 to 5.7% in 2020. National Bank of Uzbekistan's NPL ratio also improved slightly, from 3.1% to 2.8%. However, the NPL ratio at Agrobank rose from 2.9% to 7.7%, according to The Banker Database. Uzpromstroybank still has the lowest NPL ratio of the top four Uzbek banks, notwithstanding a slight increase to 0.7%.

Despite a pickup in the economy this year, asset quality at Uzbek banks is likely to come under pressure as the full impact of the pandemic starts to be felt.

Trends identified using The Banker Database, an online database providing comprehensive financial data and insight for 4000 of the world's leading banks in 190 countries. Contact us.