BANK STANDARD A SAMPLE OF ASSURANCE AND DYNAMIC DEVELOPMENT
Bank Standard has been confidently keeping its position of being the largest private bank in the Azerbaijani financial market for several years. The bank is strengthening its leading position in the domestic market on account of increasing and extending its spectrum of banking services.
Bank Standard plays an active part in the socio-economic life of the country and contributes into the national economic development and prosperity of its clients’ business.
The main indicator of the bank’s activity for the last year was the dynamic growth of its total assets which exceeded $100 million. Bank Standard was the first and the only private Azerbaijani bank which surmounted this psychologically important level.
Another important event was the opening of its main administrative building at # 4, Hajiyev Street. Both the location of the building, and its interiors met banking office requirements which assists in an increase in service quality.
During 2005, Bank Standard actively continued strengthening its positions in the financial market in a regular manner. This period was marked with a significant growth of its total assets. Today it comprises more than some 110 million AZN apart from reserves. Correspondingly, the present aggregate capital has grown to reach around 13 million AZN. The bank’s development was indicated by increasing efficiency of its branch network. According to the total branch network, net profit of the total branch network activity in 2005 reached 40%.
The bank’s administration is very satisfied about the qualitative and quantitative increase of its client database on account of both private and corporate clients. Thus, last year the number of accounts of corporate clients increased by 70%. Along with it, the number of plastic cards given out by the bank increased 2-fold, and the factor of salary-system introduction for the corporate clients played an important role.
Staying committed to its innovative principles, besides developing "classical" products and services for the country, Bank Standard works for the future and tries to introduce the experience of the world banking practice in the local financial market, introducing its products and services currently considered non-traditional for Azerbaijan. The unique experience on factoring operations serves as an example. Today, Bank Standard is on the brink of providing high-quality services in this area at the stock market.
Developing its branch network, Bank Standard works on keeping and increasing efficiency. Last year two more branches were opened, one of them is located in the Second Micro-district of Baku, and the second is in Siyazan.
Bank Standard cooperates actively with international financial institutions and enlarges correspondent relations with overseas banks. In 2005 new correspondent accounts were opened in Commerzbank (Germany), the Wachoviabank (USA) and the Russlavbank (Russia).
The entities representing almost all branches of the national economy, including industrial production, processing, construction, agriculture, transport, trade, tourism, communication and etc. are presented at the corporate segment of client base in Bank Standard.
The bank implements a flexible tariff policy, and having enough resources of its own, finances big projects at competitive rates, works actively with the businessmen in Baku and in the regions, first of all in the areas where the bank has its own branches. As of today the bank is financing such projects in 12 different regions of Azerbaijan.
It is necessary to note that the extension of the bank’s corporate base takes place mainly due to the representatives of the small and middle business entrepreneurship that determines the significance of this direction in the bank’s activity.
The bank holds strong positions in providing services to natural persons and currently has 20 thousand accounts registered with it. Quick transferring systems are very popular. Bank Standard used to be the first bank in Azerbaijan that connected to the Western Union system and continues to provide this service. On the other hand, on the returns of last year more than half of the total number of orders implemented by Azerbaijan banks on the quick posting system were from Bank Standard. In September, 2005 the bank connected to one more popular quick transferring system known as ‘Contact’. As a result, the total circulation on quick transferring systems was approximately $50 million in 2005.
The continuous increase of the population income observed during the previous years created favorable conditions for developing consumer credit services. Displaying high activity in the consumer credits sphere, the bank is planning on introducing an express-crediting system in the near future which will be made possible through utilization of the new software environment. Besides, the bank is planning on implementing a number of tourism, educational and health related programs.
Rapid development of the bank permits increasing its authorized capital stock for the next time, up to 15 million AZN this time. Besides, Bank Standard is going to increase all basic financial indicators of its activities including amount of assets, deposit and credit portfolios and other important indicators by an average of 30-50%. The bank is also planning to continue extending the branch network and to bring the number of the functioning branches up to 12. Bank Standard is sure of its intellectual and financial potential and is ready to defend its position of being the largest private bank of Azerbaijan in future.