Tenge Bank
Depending on how you look at it, opening shop in Uzbekistan in 2019 was either poorly timed or a stroke of genius. Kazakhstan’s Halyk Bank is doing a solid job of proving that its decision to set up Tenge Bank in Uzbekistan, now in its fourth year, was the smart thing to do as it increases its footprint in local investment circles.
As Tenge Bank’s chief excutive, Talgat Ayupov, puts it, the bank’s mission is to provide services in Uzbekistan on a par with the highest international standards. It wants to do this with a focus on safe, trusted and efficient bond issuance transactions and by deploying funds as productively as possible.
That Uzbekistan was the sixth country where the Halyk group decided to operate shows just how much work remains to be done in building a more robust financial system. But the Uzbek economy’s impressive resilience in 2021 – it grew 7.4% – validates Halyk’s intuition in securing a licence from the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
More than three years on, Halyk’s entry, via its 100%-owned subsidiary Tenge, has proved a shot in the arm for Uzbekistan.