Deputy minister: No restriction in deposit withdrawal from IBA

By  Trend

There are no restrictions or problems at the International Bank of Azerbaijan concerning the withdrawal of deposits, Deputy Finance Minister Azer Bayramov said on May 25.

He made the remarks at a meeting of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee for Economic Policy, Industry and Entrepreneurship.

“I believe the bank’s management has given sufficient explanations in this regard. Now anyone can withdraw their deposits from the bank, but I think there is no reason and need to do that as debt restructuring covers foreign creditors only,” Bayramov said.

He reminded that currently, management of the IBA and the Finance Ministry – IBA’s main shareholder – are negotiating with these creditors for debt restructuring.

The International Bank of Azerbaijan has been operating since 1992 and is one of the country’s two state-owned banks.

The IBA has suspended payments on some liabilities and is seeking support from creditors to restructure more than $3 billion of debt.

The bank ran into problems in 2015 when bad loans built up. President Ilham Aliyev, on International Monetary Fund advice, ordered its balance sheet be cleaned up and the bank sold off, but no sale has occurred. The government has already taken over $5 billion in bad loans from the IBA.