The Pandemic Didn’t Stop Kazakhstani Banks from Paying Top Managers with Bonuses

Published
Among the most generous banks are five entities

According to Finprom, in 2020, 17 of Kazakhstan’s banks have paid bonuses to members of their executive bodies for the year 2019. In total, the top managers of these banks received 12.1 billion tenge ($28.3 million).

The most generous bonuses were paid by ForteBank (2.2 billion tenge), Halyk Bank (2 billion tenge), Sberbank (1.9 billion tenge), Home Credit Bank (1.3 billion tenge) and Alfa-Bank (839 million tenge). Three out of five are foreign subsidiary banks.

As experts noted, the financial difficulties that banks have faced after the pandemic hit haven’t been seen by them as an obstacle to the payments. Even Tengri Bank, which does not comply with the requirements of the financial regulator in terms of prudential standards and has a large share of problem loans, paid out 171.3 million tenge ($401,773) to top managers. Another bank, AsiaCredit Bank, paid 67.1 million tenge ($157,379) in bonuses. The most unprofitable Nurbank has thanked its top managers by paying them 103.5 million tenge ($242,753).

In general, there are 27 commercial banks in Kazakhstan, 15 of which are banks with foreign participation, including 12 subsidiaries. The total amount of assets is 29.1 trillion tenge ($68 billion), or 15.3% more compared to the same period last year (25.2 trillion tenge). Over the past three years, commercial banks’ assets have been growing at an average of 7.1% per year. However, the share of the ten largest banks is 85.4% of the total assets of all banks.

As Kursiv edition wrote in August, Nurbank, VTB and Jýsan Bank have all cut their advertising budgets while Halyk Bank, Home Credit Bank and ForteBank increased their marketing spending instead.

According to the audited financial statements of banks, in 2019, the total expenses of banks for advertising and marketing reached 17.44 billion tenge ($40.8 million) against 13.22 billion a year earlier. The growth for the year amounted to 4.22 billion tenge or 32%.

Read also