Tajik banking system’s assets rose nearly 20 percent, or more than 4 billion somonis (equivalent to more than 410 million U.S. dollars at the last year’s average exchange rate), in a year to December 31, 2020, reaching more than 26.3 billion somonis, according to the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT).
For a bank, the assets are the financial instruments that either the bank is holding (its reserves) or those instruments where other parties owe money to the bank—like loans made by the bank and government securities, such as bonds purchased by the bank.
Tajik central bank attributes an increase in banking assets to an increase in lending and funds kept in correspondent accounts at foreign banks.
Meanwhile, the country’s loan portfolio rose 12.2 percent, or 1.2 billion somonis, in a year to December 31, 2020, reaching about 10.9 billion somonis.
The increase in lending in 2020 was mainly achieved due to the increase in commercial loans and loan provided to physical entities. However, nonperforming loans last year accounted for 23.4 percent of the total volume of loans provided last year.
A nonperforming loan is a loan in which the borrower is default and hasn't made any scheduled payments of principal or interest for more than 30 days.
There are 69 lending agencies now operating in Tajikistan, including 18 traditional banks, one Islamic bank, 18 microcredit deposit organizations, five microlending agencies and 27 microlending funds.
