Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank First-Half Losses Swelled to $9.9 Billion

BTA Bank, Kazakhstan’s largest lender by assets, saw losses expand to 1.5 trillion tenge ($9.9 billion) in the first half, the country’s financial regulator said, citing preliminary data.

BTA, one of three Kazakh banks to default this year, had assets of 2.6 trillion tenge on July 1, the Financial Supervision Agency said on its Web site today. The bank, in which the Kazakh National Wellbeing Fund Samruk-Kazyna holds a 75.1 percent stake, reported a loss of 261.5 billion tenge in the first quarter as it boosted reserves against bad loans. BTA spokesman Adil Dosymov declined to comment on the report.

Kazakhstan’s 38 banks lost a collective 2.2 trillion tenge in the first half, with assets totaling 12.1 trillion tenge, the agency said. Kazkommertsbank reported net income of 126.5 million tenge, the only top-four bank to have a profit. In the year-earlier period, 35 Kazakh banks had a total profit of 68 billion tenge.

The government of Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s biggest energy producer, spent 766.8 billion tenge of oil revenue to prop up its banking system and economy through July 20, including its takeover of BTA.

The country’s banks had 3.1 trillion tenge in reserves to cover nonperforming loans as of July 1, up by 143 billion tenge in June, the agency said on July 22. Banks had 4.9 trillion tenge in liabilities to foreign investors on July 1, including 1.2 trillion tenge they must pay back after more than 5 years, the agency said.

‘Formal Loss’

London-traded Alliance Bank, Kazakhstan’s sixth-largest, suffered a loss of 645 billion tenge in the first half, the agency said. Alliance went into default in April. Bank spokeswoman Asel Tynyshbekova declined to comment on the agency’s report.

Halyk Savings Bank, Kazakhstan’s third-largest, had a loss of 13 billion tenge in the first half, the agency said.

“Halyk Savings Bank posted a formal loss as it increased provisions against bad loans,” Bagdat Kodzhakhmetov, a spokesman for Halyk, said by telephone in Almaty today. “We expect that our customers’ situation will improve and these figures will change by the end of the year.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Nariman Gizitdinov in Almaty at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Bloomberg