Press Release

Nur-Sultan July 30, 2021

Guram Andronikashvili to retire as ForteBank Chairman of the Management Board

Fortebank announced today that its current Chairman of the Management Board, Guram Andronikashvili is retiring from his post, and will continue in a new role as member of the Supervisory Board from August 1, 2021. Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, Sholpan Nurumbet, is appointed as acting Chairman of the Management Board as of that date.

“I would like to thank Guram for his work over the last several years. Under his leadership Fortebank demonstrated stable asset growth combined with excellent financial performance, continually growing its client base and improving customer service and product offering. Significant progress was made in digitalisation of the bank and transformation of internal corporate culture. I am confident that this has laid an excellent foundation for further success of Forte”, commented Bulat Utemuratov, majority shareholder of ForteBank.

Guram Andronikashvili was appointed as the Chairman of the Management Board of ForteBank in February 2018. During his management term For the bank demonstrated stable asset growth with continuous improvement of capitalisation and liquidity metrics. Over the last three years net income of the bank increased 2.7 times, from 20 bn tenge in 2017 to 53 bn tenge (c. US$130mm) in 2020, with return on equity improving from 10.2% to 21.2%. Continuous improvement in profitability coupled with conservative growth of loan portfolio and focused risk management culture allowed the bank to maintain high level of stability, which was noted by all three rating agencies. As a part of strategic development under management of Guram Andronikashvili, bank underwent internal digital transformation and a number of new ecosystem products were launched (ForteMarket – digital marketplace, ForteMobile – mobile service package, ForteForex – p2p foreign exchange). Just in 2020 number of retail clients using ForteApp increased by 38.3% and number of corposate clients using Forte internet banking increased by 35.8%.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the shareholder of the bank, Mr Bulat Utemuratov, for his trust, guidance and support over the period of last 11 years during which I have worked for Forte. I am sure that going forward I will be able to continue supporting the bank, but in a new role as a member of the supervisory board. I would also like to thank all my colleagues for their exceptional dedication in shaping Forte. Together, we have successfully transformed Forte from a small bank that was one of the smallest in the country in 2010 to one of the leading universal banks and a growing ecosystem in Kazakhstan. Over the last several years we have proven our financial strength by comfortably passing the Asset Quality Review (AQR) and regulatory stress tests, operated effectively during the Covid-19 pandemic and at the same time delivered record financial and operational performance. As a part of the implementation of our strategy, Forte made huge steps in working out our historical heritage loan portfolios from Alliance and Temir banks, completely upgraded our IT architecture and infrastructure and created new data gathering and analytical platform - Forte DataLake, built out significant digital capabilities and developed our own app for individual clients and legal entities (to be released in the nearest future). All this allowed us to offer quality new products and services to our clients, including beyond banking ecosystem products, the number of which is growing from year to year, and to create a high-quality platform for the further development of Forte,” commented Guram Andronikashvili, Chairman of the Management Board of ForteBank.