President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the country’s financial industry

President Nursultan Nazarbayev listened to National Bank’s report on the 2013 and Q1 2014 results, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the President’s Press Service.

Head of State gave a number of instructions to the National Bank and the Government to reduce the share of NPLs, accelerate introduction of Basel III standards, and strengthen safeguards to protect the rights of consumers of banking products.

“Loans as compared to last year have grown by 13%. Household deposits stand at $55.2 billion. The assets of the National Oil Fund [accumulating windfall oil revenues] have exceeded $ 70 billion, growing by almost 22% in the current year. Pension funds have merged into the State-run Single Pension Fund. To ensure further growth of the banking sector, the National Bank is developing a concept of the industry development through to 2030. The concept is to be complete by June”, President said.

Mid-February 2014 at the extended government sitting Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev commissioned banks’ heads to reduce the share of NPLs “in any possible ways” to 15% of their portfolio by 2015 and further to 10% by 2016.

As of the end of 2013, the share of NPLs throughout the country’s banking sector stood at 31.2%. According to Fitch Ratings, in February the indicator grew to 33%.