Head of Halyk bank calmly behaves toward the introduction planned by AFS of new restrictions on foreign borrowings of banks

/INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN, Almaty, March 6, 07/ - The introduction of new restrictions on foreign borrowings of banks by the state agency for financial supervision (AFS) of Kazakhstan will nit have a substantial influence upon their activity this year, considers Grigoriy Marchenko, the head of the commercial Halyk bank. "I think that in 2007 these restrictions, in the kind as they will be adopted, will not have any substantial influences on the activity of banks, but in 2008 they will," he said at the press conference on Tuesday in Almaty. "Banks have a particular reserve plus there are schemes, which allow effectively attracting money, but which formally will not be right for restrictions of AFS. Therefore, as it appears to me, in 2007 new restrictions of AFS will not have a serious impact on those programs of bank borrowings," added G. Marchenko. At the same time, he continued, changes of situation in the capital markets, which can lead to reduction of the volume of foreign borrowings by banks, should not be excluded, since these borrowings "will become too complicated and too expensive". "And here the correction will occur not as a result of AFS's actions, but as a result of simply a change in the market environment," said the head of HB. In his turn, Dauren Karabayev, the managing director of HB, who participated in the press conference, noted that new restrictions will not have a considerable influence on the activity of this bank. "Our ability to borrow remains the highest even in the presence of new restrictions," he said. According to D. Karabayev, the innovation of AFS will lead to that point that in any case Kazakhstani banks will capitalize and "will more actively apply to other sources of financing in the domestic market." "We know that in the market there are already several deals for increasing the capital of various banks, and in the nearest future it will be clear how much banks can borrow further," he said. As it was reported, AFS adopted the decision starting from April 1, 2007 to restrict volumes of foreign borrowings of commercial banks by sizes of their equity. Last year AFS and the National Bank introduced in three stages a series of restrictions for attracting foreign borrowings of the commercial banks of the republic. [2007-03-07]