ALL BUT ONE OF GEORGIA’S BANKS MAKE THE CUT
By M. Alkhazashvili (Translated by Diana Dundua)

The Messenger, Georgia
July 25 2007

Out of the 18 commercial banks in Georgia, 17 managed to meet the
National Bank of Georgia’s (NBG) criterion of GEL 12 million in base
capital for legal operation. The sole exception was Cascade Bank
Georgia, bought out by Bank of Georgia.

Cascade Bank is Bank of Georgia’s third bank purchase, following
its earlier acquisitions of Tbiluniveraslbank and Intellectbank,
according to the newspaper Kviris Palitra.

Cascade Bank was a subsidiary of Cascade Capital Holdings, in
turn owned by the Cafesjian Family Foundation, a US-based Armenian
concern. Cascade Bank took over the Tbilisi branch of the Greek-owned
Emporiko Georgia in 2006.

NBG says most commercial banks had no trouble showing base capital
of at least GEL 12 million; the country’s banks had months of advance
warning, and the major ones already met the requirement.

Aside from Cascade Bank, only three banks-Turkish Ziraat Bank, Bank
Tetri and Azerbaijani International Bank-logged some difficulty, though
all managed to fulfill the base capital requirement by the deadline.

NBG says it has no immediate plans for another increase to the minimum
base capital for commercial banks, and the EU is satisfied by their
latest regulatory tweak.