DUSHANBE, April 22, 2016, Asia-Plus – Open Joint-Stock Company Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB), which was considered the second-largest commercial bank in Tajikistan in terms of total assets, may force some of its employees to take unpaid vacation for an uncertain time.
“Persons selected for redundancy have already been informed of that,” a source at TSB told Asia-Plus in an interview Friday afternoon.
The source refrained from giving the reason for that move, while Asia-Plus has failed to get in touch with top managers of the bank.
We will recall that panic was spreading among customers at TSB last month. Customers were signing up to waiting lists in their thousands to withdraw whatever money they could.
On March 14, TSB issued a statement that attributed interruptions in its services to a switchover in its money-processing system. “Short-term disruptions in the functioning of bank cards are possible. We apologize for the inconvenience,” the statement said.
The National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) announced last month it was in talks with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) over the state of the banking system. Particular attention was devoted to the role of banks deemed crucial to Tajikistan’s economy, including TSB.
The EBRD reportedly welcomed TSB’s new strategy, which is aimed at increasing capitalization, bolstering growth and quality in credit for real sectors of the economy and attracting new foreign institutional investors into the bank’s capital structure. The EBRD hopes that success in this process will open avenues for greater cooperation with TSB,” the National Bank said in a statement.
Meanwhile, George Orlov, EBRD”s Director for Financial Institutions in Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, said the EBRD was ready to provide the necessary funds to ensure sustainability of the TSB in the event that it would carry out reforms. “As soon as reforms start, the EBRD will consider the possibility of providing the necessary assistance,” Orlov told
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service
in an interview.
TSB was established in December 1990 as the Tajik branch of the Vnesh Econom Bank of the former Soviet Union, and it initially specialized in trade and import-export banking. Later this branch was reorganized into a Joint-Stock Commercial Bank “Tajikvnesheconombank”. In June 1999 the bank was renamed and registered as Tojiksodirotbonk or TSB.
Headquartered in Dushanbe, TSB has 12 branches in the main cities of Tajikistan and covering all regions of the country.
