Stressed Assets Fund to buy out bad loans from banks starting from May

The Stressed Assets Fund, a subsidiary of the Kazakhstan’s National Bank, may start buying out bad loans from the second-tier banks as early as in May, Newskaz.ru reports, citing National Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko as saying in his recent interview for the Prime News Agency. The vehicle will be used to buy out bad loans not related to the real estate market. Bad loans subject to independent assessment will be purchased at 50% discount. According to some estimates, the share of bad loans stands at 30% of the overall banks’ loan portfolios. “We rule out any deals related to real estate since the amounts of such deals are much higher than capacities of the Stressed Assets Fund, that is about $5 billion. As the National Bank [Central Bank], we are not ready to invest more than that. Other bad loans will be dealt with by special subsidiaries of banks themselves”, Central Bank Governor elaborated. The financing scheme envisages issuing bonds, with the first tranche to be purchased by pension funds, the second by banks and the third by the National Bank. According to Mr. Marchenko, the first batch of bonds may be issued as early as in May.