The FINANCIAL — “The war had an impact on our operations,” Irina Dumbadze, Head of the Marketing Department of BTA in Georgia, local bank affiliated with leading Kazakh bank BTA. “We are looking forward to our Kazakh partner’s visit which will be held in November. At the meeting we will discus the amount of funding that BTA will get,” Dumbadze told The FINANCIAL. She said there are no doubts that BTA’s Kazakh investors are staying on the Georgian market. “They think that the Georgian banking sector is fast developing and holds big potential for growth.”
BTA’s new logo is a combination of two squares crossing each other. They are in two colours: light green and red. According to the company representative this contrast makes the logo easily seen. Red is the symbol of energy; green is the symbol of trust and sincerity; two squares crossing each other is a symbol of collaboration.
The decision to start the re-branding was made at the beginning of 2008.
“The new strategy to become a leading financial institution in the CIS and shift its brand from nation-wide to international underlies the re-branding campaign. TuranAlem which is now BTA has its representative offices in about 10 countries In order to have underlined its universality the bank decided to create a new brand identity which would represent the bank in all these countries. Of course in each of these countries the identity is in correspondence with local social and cultural norms,” said Irina Dumbadze.
The whole process covered three stages. The first was defining the strategies. BTA made different tender offers. Zviad Tsikolia designed the interior-exterior for the bank in Georgia. For 18 years Zviad Tsikolia made lots of successful projects in transportation, industrial, graphic, interior design fields and was responsible for the design of Air companies, worked as a consultant for a French car manufacturer and as a senior designer in a Japanese Design Company. The second stage was the promotion of the new image. It included billboards, TV commercials and sponsorship.
“We have signed a contract with the chain of supermarket “Super” which means that our logo will be present in their markets. We’ve totally changed the designs of our office inventory and very soon all of our branches will be equipped with it. In order to maintain individualism in our employees we decided not to design standard office clothing,” Head of the Marketing Department told The FINANCIAL.
“The result of the re-branding will be evident. Both the client and the bank will save time and time is money. We are going to make the main emphasis on increasing the quality of our service. Today because of the market conditions in general banks pay more attention to the product itself and not on the quality of service.”
There will be a limitation of colours. Mr. Tsikolia also designed the ties and scarves for the bank’s employees. According to Irina Dumbadze this process will increase the efficiency of the bank’s service.
The financial results for BTA in Georgia in 2006 and 2007 were:
2006
Total Assets USD 29,025,869 (increase)
Credit Portfolio USD 18,773,016
Deposits USD 10,376,135
Loans USD 13,224,604
Share Capital USD 3,572 100 (increase)
Total Sum of Share Capital USD 4,627,784
2007
Total Assets USD 79,896,153
Credit Portfolio USD 50,167,703 (increase)
Deposits USD 50,576,801 (increase)
Loans USD 11,380,727 (increase)
Share Capital USD 12,643,113 (increase)
The bank nearly stopped the issuance of loans. The reason according to the Head of the Marketing Department is that they are waiting for financial support from Kazakh headquarters.
On 31 October one of the largest Kazakh banks Halyk Bank officially opened its first branch in Georgia on Kostava Street N74.
“At this stage we think that Halyk Bank Georgia is our competitor, like many other banks on the Georgian market. Still, we look at the leader banks as our main competitors. We don’t know yet what types of products they will offer to the Georgian market. At the beginning stage of their operations, Halyk Bank Georgia will probably be oriented more at the corporate market,” noted Mrs. Dumbadze.
At the moment BTA has 7 branches and in one month there will be two more added.
47% of the shares of Georgian BTA belong to Kazakh investors, 26% belongs to Silk Road Group and the rest to minor shareholders. Currently there are 261 employees at the company.
In the field of non-credit products BTA offers various types of deposits in Kazakhstan:
• Personal Banking: Products and Services
• Credits
• Savings accounts
• Money transfers
• Pay cards
• Travellers Cheques
• Safe storage
• Investment products
• Account operations
• Mortgage loans
• Insurance
• Pension fund
• Currency exchange operations
One of the main directions of BTA’s activity is the service provision for corporate clients of different fields of activity in Kazakhstan:
• Financing
• Pay cards
• Salary projects
• Account operations
• Tender guarantee
• Treasury
• Brokerage
• Bank-Client System ‘BTA Connect’
• BTA Online
• Currency exchange operations
In 1Q 2008 BTA Bank achieved the following financial results:
• Total Assets increased by 3% to USD 26.2 billion
• BTA Kazakhstan banking assets’ share equalled 26% in Total Assets of the banking sector of Kazakhstan.
• Loan portfolio equalled USD 19.9 billion
• Total liabilities increased by 3.1% to USD 22.4 billion
• Total Liabilities increased by 3.1% to USD 22.4 billion
Net income of the Bank in 1Q 2008 was recorded as USD 129 million exceeding the 1Q 2007 indicator by 25%. The most important profitability driver was the increase of net interest income that grew at a rate adequate to the growth of the bank’s business.
“We will offer a new credit card which will soon appear on the market. There are some credit products offered by BTA in Georgia that other companies don’t have. We have Non-stop Credit for example. You can take out an urgent loan without income confirmation and a wide range of conditions. Our bank has many interesting deposits, but at the beginning stage we’re going to put more emphasis on credit lines.”
BTA Bank provides banking services to more than 1.2 million retail and 95.6 thousand corporate customers. Its strategic partner banks cover Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.
Written By Levan Lomtadze
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