Three countries dominate the banking landscape in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (excluding Russia – and including Georgia, although the country departed the CIS in 2009). These three are Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which between them account for almost 90% of bank capital and assets in the region.
Their dominance is so great that, to analyse and rank banks from the other eight countries, it is necessary to separate out the big three. The largest 12 banks in the CIS are all from these three countries, and only four banks from the other eight countries (one each from Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, and two from Georgia) feature anywhere among the largest 30.