ALMATY: Bank CenterCredit , Kazakhstan's fifth-largest lender by assets, expects to more than double its net profit in 2012 by growing its loan portfolio and interest margin, the bank's chief executive said.
Vladislav Lee forecast CenterCredit's net profit would rise to 4 billion tenge ($27 million) in 2012 from 1.5 billion tenge expected in the current year. The bank is part-owned by South Korea's top mortgage lender, Kookmin Bank.
"We have managed to improve our interest margin from 0.9 percent and are hoping to finish 2011 with around 2.0 percent," Lee said in an interview, citing a significant reduction of the bank's liquidity and debt over the last year.
Kazakhstan's commodity-driven economy, the largest in Central Asia, has grown by an average 8 percent annually over the last decade, underpinned by strong oil and metals prices.
After years of stellar growth backed by heavy international borrowing, the country's once-admired banking sector was hit hard by the global financial crisis, leading several of its banks though not CenterCredit to default in 2009.
Lee said CenterCredit planned to increase its total loan portfolio to 800 billion tenge by the end of 2011, an increase of 10 percent or slightly more over the course of the year, and to grow its portfolio by a further 10 percent in 2012.
He said that non-performing loans (NPLs) accounted for about 9 percent of CenterCredit's total portfolio, down from 11 percent at the end of 2010. "We're looking at approximately the same indicators for NPLs and provisions next year," he said.
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