TASHKENT (COMTEX) – The State Commercial Xalq bank (National Bank of Uzbekistan) increased its assets by 31% up to 1.618 trillion soum in 2011 compared to 2010, the bank told Trend on Thursday.

National Bank of Uzbekistan provides banking services in Uzbekistan. Its retail services include money transfers, consumer and hypothecary crediting of physical persons, mortgage crediting, operations with securities, municipal payments, plastic cards, deposits, traveller’s cheques, and currency operations. The company’s corporate services comprise remote banking, credits, factoring, underrating and consultative services, financing export and import, document and dealing operations, leasing, working capital financing, and project financing. Its services for small and medium businesses consist of small and medium business support, special fund of preferential lending, foreign credit types, credit types of non-budget funds, micro-crediting, and starting capital. The company operates approximately a network of 96 offices. National Bank of Uzbekistan was founded in 1991 and is based in Tashkent

Bank’s loan portfolio increased by 36.2%, up to 755.8 billion soums and the liabilities by 33.6% to 1.384 trillion soums in 2011. A net profit of 37.4 billion soums at the end of 2011 was gained compared to 28.3 billion soums in the previous year, an increase by 32.2%. The Xalq bank’s equity capital increased by 17.5%, taking it to 234.2 billion, the result of authorized capital of 180 billion soum being generated at the start of 2012.

The authorized capital consists of 360,000 ordinary shares with a par value of 500 000 soum each. The founders of the bank are the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan and the Central Bank holding 51 and 49% shares, respectively. As previously reported, the President of Uzbekistan issued a decree in October 2008 to increase the authorized bank capital to 200 billion soums by additional issues of shares until the end of 2012. According to the document, the shares will be placed among the founders of the existing shares in proportion to participation.

The state-commercial Xalq Bank was reorganized from the Uzbek Republican Savings Bank in 1995. The bank is an agent of the government in implementing social programs. It works primarily as a universal commercial bank and is a leader in terms of customers’ deposits with a market share of 23%. It has 200 branches, 2500 units, more than 200 mini-banks and 300 savings banks. Its customer base is about 30,000 companies and organizations legal and nine million people.

In 2009, the assets of the Bank increased 1.7 times compared to 2008 (up to 877.7 billion soums), the loan portfolio by 77% (up to 419.2 billion soums), obligations by 71.7% (up 721.1 billion soums), own capital by 1,6 times (up to 156,7 billion sums given the formed authorized capital worth 100 billion soums).

The official exchange rate on March 1 is 1827.89 soum/US $1.