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Weekly Lists
March 23, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 27
bne:Banker
Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada fails to approve bill that would improve bank governance
Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada failed to approve a banking bill that would improve bank governance on March 20. Only 187 lawmakers voted in favour of the draft in the first reading, while 226 votes were needed.
The bill changes the principles of supervisory board formation in state-owned banks. Prepared by the finance ministry, it called for the supervisory board of state-owned banks to consist of seven members, including five independent members and two appointees by the president and cabinet, reports Concorde Capital.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has been struggling to clean up the sector, and while it has made a lot of progress the job is still only half finished. Real progress was made this month when a new governor was appointed after an 11 month hiatus. But it seems the new team at the NBU are off to a slow start.
The National Bank of Greece (NBG) group will resume sale pro- cedures for its Romanian subsidiary Banca Romaneasca after the Romanian central bank banned the sale of the local subsidiary to OTP Bank group, according to unofficial sources quoted on March 19 by Bursa daily.
In its turn, OTP Bank announced that it is still assessing the refusal issued by Romania’s central bank. It can challenge the decision by March 29. It also confirmed its commitment to further grow on the Romanian market and in the region.
"Regardless of the final result, the management OTP Bank remains committed to the objective to strengthening its presence in Roma- nia, through organic growth or by new acquisitions,” the Hungarian lender said. “At the same time, OTP Bank will continue the strate- gic direction of acquisitions in the Central and Eastern Europe.”
Kazakhstan’s largest lender by assets, Halyk Bank, said on March 19 that it is projecting a rise in net profit to more than KZT200bn (€506.8mn) in 2018 from the KZT173.4bn recorded for 2017.
The bank said last week that its net profit grew by 31.9% y/y in 2017 and that the value of its assets moved up by 65.6% following its takeover of the troubled Kazkommertsbank. KKB was the largest lender in the country until Halyk Bank bought a controlling stake of 99.71% last year at the behest of the government. The takeover in- cluded a bailout of around €6bn to solve KKB’s bad loan problems.
NBG to re-start
sale procedures for Romanian subsidiary Banca Romaneasca
Largest Kazakh lender Halyk expects net profit to grow 15.3% in 2018