February 4, 2021. The improvement of online products, growth of deposit and credit portfolios, recapitalization – these are the main events that happened with the bank in 2020. Despite the difficulties of the past year, JSC Nurbank managed to accomplish all set tasks and remain stable.
At the beginning of 2020, the bank underwent an Asset Quality Review (AQR). This diagnostic tool identifies banks' capital needs - evaluating the quality of portfolios and analyzing lending practices. Based on the results, the regulator recommended several measures implemented by the bank in 2020.
In spring of last year, subordinated bonds amounting to 46.8 billion tenge were issued with a maturity of 15 years. The received funds were directed by the bank towards lending and supporting the real sector of the economy. In May, Nurbank completed additional capitalization of 20 billion, resulting in increased bank reliability, development, and growth in line with its chosen strategy.
“These measures allowed us to meet the obligations based on the AQR results and create additional provisions drawn from profits as a safety buffer for potential problematic loan losses. This impacted the financial results (loss equivalent to the provisions created). It is important to understand that this loss amounting to 48.4 billion tenge was anticipated by us and is a natural consequence of creating a substantial volume of provisions,” explained in Nurbank.
Nurbank has been in the Kazakhstan market for over 28 years, consistently and fully meeting its obligations on time. In 2020, Standard and Poor’s upgraded the ratings, improving the outlook from 'negative' to 'stable'.
Despite 2020 being challenging in all aspects, the bank's indicators are stable and show growth across several sectors. By the end of the current year, the bank maintained its credit portfolio and plans to increase its volume by at least 8% relative to the end of 2020 levels. Positive outcomes for the bank in 2020 compared to 2019:
- Increase in the active credit portfolio by 3.3% or 5.7 billion tenge;
- Increase in the deposit portfolio by 4.5% or 12.5 billion tenge;
- Growth of net interest income by 24%;
- Growth of income from trading operations by 1.5 times.
Significant achievements in 2020 were demonstrated in the small and medium business sector. In particular, the credit portfolio increased by 15%, net interest income grew by 45%, and the deposit portfolio increased by 15.8%. There was also growth in the number of borrowers by 12.8% and depositors by 19.2%. The share of the credit portfolio of SMEs in the bank's total portfolio grew from 23% in 2019 to 27% in 2020.
This year we plan to steadily enhance the bank's competitiveness and maintain the most comfortable conditions for clients, focusing on the development of retail business as an integral attribute of a universal bank.