Alliance Bank JSC (Kazakhstan) raises a USD 95 million loan

/KASE, August 7, 08/ - Alliance Bank JSC (Almaty), a listing company of Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), provided KASE with the press release of August 5: Quotation start Almaty, August 5, 2008 - Today Alliance Bank (LSE: ALLB) announced that it signed a bilateral agreement with Merrill Lynch International to raise a loan of USD 95 million due on January 20, 2010. The Loan rate was fixed at 9.67% per annum. The loan funds will be forwarded for the origination of loans to Alliance Bank's customers. Alliance Bank still retains the leading position in the retail and SME business lending sectors. According to the Managing Director of Alliance Bank, Anvar Khaltaev, in the context of the present restricted access to the money resources at the international capital markets, the transaction itself executed with one of the largest world renowned financial institutions as well as the amount and value of the raised funds prove the confidence and continuous interest of foreign investors towards the Kazakhstan banking sector. About Alliance Bank Alliance Bank is one of the leading banks in Kazakhstan. Established in 1993, nowadays the Bank is among the five top Kazakhstan banks in terms of both assets and equity size. Alliance Bank has been developing as a universal financial institution in all business segments, focusing primarily on the retail market including card business and SME lending. The Bank has a wide regional network of 23 branches and 177 outlets in 64 cities and rural settlements with customer base over 2 million people. At present the Bank's ATM network consists of 1233 machines throughout Kazakhstan. According to the 1Q2008 consolidated financial statements, the assets of the Bank as of April 1, 2008 amounted to KZT 1.137 bn., and equity totaled KZT 163 bn. Reported net profit for 1Q2008 totaled KZT 4.220 mln. The main shareholder of the Bank's is Seimar Alliance Financial Corporation (SAFC), which, as of June 1, 2008, owned 72.05% of the Bank's voting shares. Alliance Bank has the following ratings assigned by the international rating agencies: - Moody's Investors Service: long-term foreign currency rating "Ва2", short- term foreign currency rating is "NP" and financial strength is "E+" - Fitch Ratings long-term foreign currency issuer default rating (IDR) is "BB-", short-term foreign currency IDR is "B", individual is "D/E", supporting rating is "3" and supporting long-term issuer default rating is "BB-"; - Standard & Poor's: long-term counterparty rating is "B+" short-term rating is "B" For further information, please, contact: Public Relations: Tel. +7 (727) 259 80 76 E-mail: pr@alb.kz Website: www.alb.kz Investor Relations Tel.:+7 (727) 244 84 10 E-mail: InvestorRelations@alb.kz Quotation end [2008-08-07]