Business consultancy project

International Bank of Azerbaijan

IBA was established in 1992 and is the largest in the South Caucasus area in terms of assets volume. The bank is a state-owned bank (95,15% of the capital), utilizing the most advanced technologies in the banking field to maintain the high-quality level services to the customers. Moreover, the bank is on leading positions in terms of cashless payments turnover and the widest ATM network among banks of Azerbaijan, which reached 756.
Headquartered in Baku, IBA has a large footprint of 36 branches, while, 38 sub-branches provide services to the customers by 1863 professional employees.
Also, innovative bank and card products are constantly developed and applied by the IBA due to the opportunities provided as a result of the partnerships with international payments systems, that creates an added value for the Bank’s customers. Furthermore, the IBA permanently attaches great importance to the infrastructure related to e-commerce and steadily stimulates the customers to fulfill the cashless payments. (ABOUT BANK, 2019)
For instance, digital banking embracing Mobile banking and Internet banking become more popular among customers because of the comfort and easiness of usage.
IBAm is an application of the IBA downloadable from the internet, which accelerates banking activities of customers: the processes of both obtaining information about the balance of the card and making payments online irrespective of location and time (IBAM - Mobile Bank, 2019)
The international rating of IBA has been raised by two positions by the international rating agency Moody's:

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  the bank’s base credit ranking was raised from caa2 to b3
  
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  the long-term deposit ranking was raised from B3 to B1 with a positive outlook
  
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  the long-term counterparty risk – changed from B2 to Ba3.
  

The enhanced quality of assets and capitalization volume stimulated the positive changes. The net profit of the bank amounted to 426 million manats in 2018 (Moody's raises ranking of International Bank of Azerbaijan, 2019)

2. 
   Kapital Bank
   

The predecessor of Kapital Bank was founded in 1874 named as Azerbaijan Savings Bank, while later in 2000 three major state banks merged - Agro-Investment Bank, Industrial-Investment Bank, and Savings Bank, consequently, the current name of Kapital Bank was obtained in 2004. Nowadays, bank serves interests of more than three million customers.
The main shareholder of the Bank is “Pasha Holding”, one of the largest holdings in Azerbaijan, owning 99,87% of shares, while 0,13% portion belongs to individual owners. Currently, Kapital Bank possesses the largest banking network in Azerbaijan. (About Bank, 2019)
Moreover, creating combined synergy of the state corporate business and retail banking opportunities at the same time as providing the best service to corporate customers are among the priorities of the Bank.
Bank is presented by 99 branches and 13 departments in Baku and regions of Azerbaijan. One of the recent and successful products of the Bank is “BirBank” project, which is the most downloaded mobile banking application with more than 600 000 users in Azerbaijan. Moreover, “BirBank” was listed as “Number 1 Top Free Finance” in the ratings of App Store, Play Store digital distribution platforms. (BirBank has won the "NETTY" award, 2019)
Furthermore, BirBank became the winner of the "National Internet Award" - "NETTY", the Azerbaijan National Internet Award in the nomination "Electronic Government and Finance-Banking Mobile Applications" in 2018. In 2018 BirBank has been chosen as the “Most innovative mobile bank in our country” by International Finance magazine. Anyone with a bank card can simply sign up for a few minutes at BirBank to manage multiple banking services, online orders and payments by phone.
(Internet and Mobile Banking - BirBank, 2019)

In 2018 Kapital Bank established the daughter-company “BirKart Non-Bank Credit Organization” to expand retail business accordingly (About Bank, 2019)

One of the main advantages of the BirKart for Customers is Quick Response (QR) Pay. The customer can easily make purchases without a bank card by using BirBank. QR Pay is a new payment type, which is fulfilled by downloading the mobile application BirBank. QR code needs to be scanned with the camera of the telephone at the payment points of stores. Moreover, any banking card can be connected to the mobile application, not only cards provided by Kapital Bank. (Internet and Mobile Banking - BirBank, 2019)
Moreover, international rating Agency Standard & Poor’s have increased the rating of Kapital Bank up to “positive” – “BB-/B” from “stable”. Thus, Kapital Bank possesses one of the highest ratings among Azerbaijani banks. According to the forecast of the international Rating Agency, leading positions in terms of retail loans and deposits will be strengthened in 2019-2020 period, as well as reputation of reliable financial institute for corporate entities will be kept (Standard & Poor's Agency has raised Kapital Bank's ratings, 2019)

3. 
   Pasha Bank
   

Pasha Bank is a leading investment and corporate Bank in Azerbaijan, that represents the part of the largest investment holding group based in Azerbaijan – Pasha Holding. The group of companies also includes significant assets in insurance, construction, tourism, and other types of businesses.
Pasha Bank was established in 2007 and offers an array of financial services embracing asset management, trade financing, and investment banking activities to domestic clients and abroad entities looking to conduct business in the region. It focuses on delivering banking services based on the principles of transparency and core values, such as Integrity, Quality, Profitability, Entrepreneurship, and Collaboration.
The highest total equity among Azerbaijan banks belongs to Pasha Bank, which is one of the top three banks in terms of assets (Table No 4). Moreover, the total capital of the Bank exceeds AZN 548 million. (About us, 2019) .The bank is mainly focused on the clients from the non-oil field of economy to maintain diversification of the economy, such as construction, retail, agriculture etc. Pasha Bank is presented by 7 business centers in Azerbaijan, while offices are also presented in Georgia and Turkey established in 2013 and 2014 accordingly.
The Bank won numerous awards in the financial field by the renowned Finance Magazines and financial organizations. The rating of Pasha Bank was reaffirmed by Standard & Poor’s in 2018 as a long-term “BB- ”and short-term “B” rating. (About Bank, 2019).
Pasha Bank remains focused on delivering innovative products and services to the clients, so the management and employees aim at meeting customers’ needs by the implementation of the cutting-edge digital solutions and technologies in order to maintain customers’ satisfaction during the digital transformation period. (Pasha Bank, 2017)
In 2017 Pasha Bank launched the deployment of the Oracle FLEXCUBE financial platform. The design of a new online banking system was accelerated due to the Oracle platform, and consequently, the upward trend was observed in the Internet Banking usage – 86% of all customers’ operations were fulfilled through online banking. Furthermore, B2B platform was introduced for big corporate clients such as, Azercell, Coca- Cola Azerbaijan, and SOCAR. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems of Pasha Bank and their Clients were integrated that drastically facilitated the transactions. (Pasha Bank, 2017)
Being committed to the development of digital services, Pasha Bank steadily takes the appropriate actions, such as the development of the digital strategy, called as “holistic digital model” of the Bank until 2020 aimed at digitalization of core business processes, that will boost the profitability accordingly.
Meanwhile, the Mobile application for individual Clients was developed by the Bank, which will accelerate banking transactions and enhance the following processes:
Payment process (mobile, utility, banking/loans, insurance, taxi, parking), 7/24 support (assistance of the contact center), Security (data is saved according to PCIDSS standard), Bank cards (the process of purchasing of debit cards, Pasha Life insurance card application, replacing/ renewing of debit cards), Transfers ( card to card – between own cards or others, via mobile number), Bank loans (application, repayment, prepayment and tracking of loans’ status), SMS notification, Transaction history, Block and Unblock, Templates of payments (to accelerate and make easier the future payments’ process). (Mobile application for Individual clients, 2019)
Table 4. General Information on Financial Market Participants (Banks) FIMSA “Overview of Banking sector, 28.02.19.