Development Bank Of Kazakhstan
As a fully state-owned bank with a quasi-sovereign status, the Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has a unique role given its focus on lending to strategic investment projects and implementing the state’s industrialization programme.
In 2020, its business was in even greater focus when Kazakhstan’s economy, which depends on oil and gas, was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. While DBK had to adjust its business model because of the crisis, it continued supporting the economy – and its employees – in various ways.
The first was to protect its employees from the coronavirus. DBK, under its chairman Abay Sarkulov, had started a digital transformation before the pandemic hit, which helped clients to access its services online and allowed employees to work remotely using its digital infrastructure. The transformation faced its first big test in 2020: DBK smoothly switched to remote working for about 90% of its employees within hours of the lockdown announcement.
More importantly, it helped the Kazakh economy to keep going. It continued lending to infrastructure projects, boosting its loan portfolio by 9.5%