Are Kazakh banks back to the brink?

“We haven’t really seen an adjustment of prices to match the scale of currency devaluation yet”  – Magzhan Auezov,  KKB

Kazakhstan’s banks are in trouble – again. That was the message from Fitch Ratings, which in late January downgraded the country’s largest lender, Kazkommertsbank (KKB), to triple-C and warned of severe capital pressures across the rest of the sector.

Among Kazakh bank watchers, the news inspired a sense of déjà vu. Seven years after the global financial crisis, the sector is still struggling to deal with the legacy.