The Central Bank of Azerbaijan has published a report on financial stability for the first half of 2012 which demonstrates that thw country economy does not need extra large banks except International Bank of Azerbaijan.

Under the report, the banks included in first top 5, except IBA, are engaged in unproductive assets and financial resources accumulation , not investing them in the country economy.

Formally crediting of economy by top 5 of the country banks is equal to AZN 5.672 bn against AZN 2.642 bn in 6-15th bank of the country and AZN 1.565 bn in 16-30 th bank. But if IBA is excluded from top 5 ( AZN 3.7 bn), the rest "4 musketeers" ( let’s call so top 5 participants without IBA) invested only AZN 1.972 bn in economy.

As a result, middle personal deposit of each "musketeer" is only AZN 493 million that is comparable with middle investment of 6-15 th bank ( AZN 264.2 million) and even 16-30 th bank( AZN 156.5 million). Comparably, judging from assets accumulated by the banks and how they spend them. Leading top 5 banks of July, has AZN 8.368 bn by 1 July against AZN 3,525 bn in 6-15 th bank and AZN 2.208 bn in 16-30 th bank.

Besides, if IBA is excluded ( AZN 5.145 bn assets) "4 musketeers" has AZN 3.223 bn or AZN 805.75 million assets each. At that 6-15 th bank has AZN 352.5 million on average and 116-30 th bank -AZN 220.8 million which is comparable with their loan portfolios, that is they support real economy more actively than "musketeers".

At that the Central Bank does not hide that "musketeers" are mainly engaged in non-productive investments in securities and capital investments. Top 5 directed for these purposes AZN 1.167 bn against AZN 108 million in next ten and AZN 18 million in the last of the examined group. These investments are non-productive as securities market is mainly presented by state securities ( foremost by the CBA notes) and capital investments are made in related business.

In fact, the "musketeers" are presently involved in taking loan percent from the state because they have so many assets. De facto it warms up money creation and gives nothing to either economy or Azerbaijan on the whole. We intentionally did not touch the information about the banks located from 31 to 43 th place so that dwarfs do not cover all brilliance of "musketeers".

As a result, it is obvious that HSBC’s forecast is fully right: Azerbaijan has place for only one extra large bank. When it was impossible to privatize or stun International Bank of Azerbaijan with help of international financial institutions, Hong Kong Shanghai Corporation left the country.  HSBC did not get offended but only realized that IBA is real economy sector of the country, that is it is Azerbaijan.