Uzbekistan

Silk Capital is making a big bet on the liberalization of the country’s financial system – a crucial test case of international demand for the nation will be the boutique investment bank’s own offshore IPO.

Orient Finans Bank is relatively small by Uzbek standards. Its Som4.3 trillion ($450 million) of assets means it cannot compete with the country’s state-owned firms, while only Hamkorbank truly eclipses it among the country’s privately owned lenders. But when it comes to the bank’s corporate and social responsibility (CSR) efforts, it has an outsized impact on the market.

Asaka Bank is the second-largest bank in the country, boasting assets of Som35 trillion ($3.7 billion) at the beginning of February. It is not often that such a large institution also turns out to be an ambitious lender to small and medium-sized enterprises, but Asaka defies conventional wisdom.

When Asiamoney was discussing the digital banking landscape with a senior banker in Uzbekistan, he started by reeling off a list of his bank’s many investments in technology, clearly doing his best to clinch this award. Briefly, though, the pitch faltered.

How should one judge a corporate and investment bank in a market such as Uzbekistan? Its capital market is practically non-existent, defined more by its prospects than the handful of private placements that have been issued.

Sanoat Qurilish Bank (SQB), one of the country’s largest state-owned lenders, has managed to achieve impressive growth over the last 12 months. It had assets of Som35.4 trillion ($3.7 billion) on February 1, according to the central bank, a rise of 15.4% from the previous year.