Translation of an excerpt of Adam Kehser’s post on Russian-lnaguage kazakhstan.neweurasia blog

Against the background of the Kazakh banking system’s liquidity and the overall atmosphere of uncertainty in this sphere, a new bank – MasterBank – is entering the market after the financial authorities have issued a license for its activity. Some observers believe that problems in local banks can be an advantage for the new player, although the authorized capital stock is not quite correspondent to such ambitions – it barely amount to a Kazakh average provincial banks’ one.

A glance at the personality behind this bank gives an interesting food for thought. 100 per cent of the bank is owned by Igor Kim, the main stakeholder and CEO of the Russian URSA-Bank.

Kim is not a newcomer to Kazakhstan. He was born in Ushtobe (small town in Southern Kazakhstan), and in early 2000s he was believed to be connected to the so-called Korean grouping, allegedly lobbied by Nurtai Abykaev, one of the closest cronies of the incumbent president, currently – the ambassador of Kazakhstan to Russia. Kim owned 20 per cent in Bank Caspian, considered to be a banking service provider for the Korean group’s construction and metallurgy enterprises.

URSA is the largest regional bank in Russia, based in Novosibirsk. Its management underscores that MasterBank is Mr. Kim’s personal project, not linked to URSA. According to a number of Russian bankers, their penetration onto Kazakh market is rather problematic. VTB, one of the top Russian banks, in spite of repeatedly announced intentions, still has not been able to enter the Kazakh banking sector. Kim did it. If there was any protectionism mechanism or not – we don’t know, but the secrecy and speed of obtaining the license raise certain doubts.

One of the hypotheses among the local conspiracy theory fans is that the new bank was, perhaps, created in order to launder the money of higher officials and transfer the funds to Russia, whose banks are far less picky about the origin of money, than Western institutions. These observers allege that this may be taking place ahead of possible apocalyptic political cataclysms within the country in light of the looming trial over ex-adviser to the president, James Giffen.