IFC HELPS AZERBAIJAN’S AGBANK RAISE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE TO INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

Baku, February 8 (AzerTAc). IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is contributing
to the development of Azerbaijan’s banking sector by helping Azerigazbank (AGBank)
raise its corporate governance to international standards and set a benchmark of
good governance for other local financial institutions.
After two years of collaboration with the IFC Corporate Governance Project, AGBank
has raised its charter and by-laws to international standards of best practice and
has significantly improved the composition and performance of its supervisory board.
The bank is also making progress with internal audit and risk management functions
and is establishing dividend and disclosure polices.
AGBank is a long-term partner of IFC. As a result of the strong commitment to
improving its governance, the bank became Azerbaijan’s first locally owned financial
institution to attract equity investment from IFC in 2006.
In 2005, IFC launched the Corporate Governance Project to improve practices at
Azerbaijani joint-stock companies and banks, helping them enhance operations and
increase their ability to attract financing and investment. To date, the project has
trained 360 joint-stock companies and banks and enabled clients to attract about $18
million in investments due to improved practices. It also helped the government
develop four pieces of legislation, which have been adopted, and developed a model
course that was adopted by five local universities. The project is supported with
funds from the government of Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.