Eskhata Bank - Assistance with Assessment and
Development of Information Technology |
Eskhata Bank is a small privately owned Tajik Bank headquartered in Khujand. Eskhata Bank was established in 1993 by a group of private individuals with banking experience and was granted a full banking license by the National Bank of Tajikistan. The Bank was founded to meet the needs of the growing private sector in the heavily underbanked North region of the country. Eskhata has been providing private companies (mostly in the agribusiness and food-processing sectors) and individuals with much needed access to lending products, money transfers ad FX operations. While the bank has been adequately capitalised to meet the minimum capital requirements in force to date, it could experience difficulties in meeting the new minimum capital requirements. Eskhata Bank approached the EBRD with a proposal to consider an equity investment and take a minority position. In December 2005 EBRD invested in the bank in exchange of newly issued ordinary voting shares and provided further finances for expansion of Eskhata Bank’s MSE lending. The equity investment will stimulate offering of the much-needed lending products to the market and will result in improved availability of debt finance to the local MSE.The overall objective of Corporate Solutions’ assignment is to assist Eskhata’s management with the institutional strengthening / implementation of Institution Building Plan (IBP) in the areas relating to the development and implementation of IT. |