Author: Yuri VALIKOV
Nurbank's CEO Kantar Orynbayev, a week after his appointment, shared with Kursiv.kz what his initial actions will be as the head of the bank.
To begin with, according to Mr. Orynbayev, he will need to delve into the bank's operations, get familiar with its affairs, and understand all internal processes, which may take a week or a month. "The next step is personnel. I am convinced that they are crucial — therefore, it's very important to form a team of highly professional managers. So among my first actions, I see the creation of a team of like-minded individuals who want and are able to work. It's crucial that managers operate on the same wavelength both with me and with the board as a whole," shared Orynbayev.
Kantar Orynbayev noted that Nurbank, like the banking system in general, still needs to work on improving the quality of the loan portfolio. However, he emphasized that the biggest effort should be put into enhancing the quality of services the bank provides. "Every bank, in my opinion, strives to become most client-oriented. From the outside, it seems simple: 'tune' employees so that they are happy to serve clients. In reality, on a larger scale, this is a big job. Therefore, much needs to be done to raise service quality to a high level," he said.
As of March 1, 2013, Nurbank had 28% doubtful loans and 37% hopeless ones, which is generally above the market average (among the 15 largest BWs). The head of Nurbank stated that the bank is now in the final stages of a major program to sell toxic assets to third-party collectors. "The program is designed for 80 billion tenge. The first two steps, for 50 billion tenge, have already been taken. And soon we will execute the third tranche. I suppose we will then take a short pause in the issue of selling problematic assets to see how well this mechanism works and how justified it is," he emphasized, adding that the bank will continue to work in this direction. Mr. Orynbayev is convinced that collection agencies are better at recovering debts than banks overall.
However, any sale of toxic assets implies a discount, which negatively affects banks' profitability. But Kantar Orynbayev emphasized that Nurbank sold assets at a small discount, and the business did not suffer significant losses.
(Read the first interview with the new head of Nurbank in the latest issue of "Kursiv")
Source: www.kursiv.kz