Nowadays reorganization of banks into Joint Stock Banks and organization of new banks in the form of Joint Stock companies increase the banks’ power in the Equity Market and expand their operations with securities of Uzbekistan. Organizational structure of banks should be established and kept up to Good Governance principles in order to achieve the most effective and efficient results.
The slow rate of implementation of Corporate Governance in the local banks is determined by transition features and the necessity to consider objective and subjective difficulties. Therefore, Good Governance plays an important role in the banking and financial institutions as a whole as well as in the global development of the country, UzReport.com reported.
According to this important issue the international seminar "Practical application of the Good Governance principals to the activities of banking and financial institutions in Uzbekistan" was conducted on 27 April in Tashkent and jointly organized by the Banking and Finance Academy of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the American Chamber of Commerce in Uzbekistan.
The seminar took place in the Banking and Finance Academy that was established to offer intensive master degree courses for the purpose of training reformative, innovative and trustworthy leading experts to upgrade knowledge and to increase professional and cultural horizons in banking and finance spheres. Banking and finance organizations of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries recommend their leading experts to be trained in the Academy in order to promote them to top managerial positions in different international and local financial institutions for developing and improvement of this sector.
The seminar was opened with a greeting from Professor Alisher Vakhabov, Rector of the Banking and Finance Academy, who narrated the importance of Good Governance issues in the banking and finance sectors.
The seminar was started with the presentation of Donald Nicholson II, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Uzbekistan. Nicholson shared his experience of conducting business in Uzbekistan and emphasized that the banks play one of the most important roles in it. In order to conduct good business, the banks should be on the appropriate level according to Good Governance principles.
The next lecture "Principles of Sound Corporate Governance" was presented by Fernand Pillonel, Head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Uzbekistan. Pillonel told about Corporate Governance principles and its relevance to banking and finance activities. During the presentation Pillonel also mentioned a survey that was conducted by EBRD in order to define the effectiveness of Corporate Governance in the bank’s countries of operations.
Also participants of the seminar wanted to know more about experience of the international banks that operating in Uzbekistan. With this issue Igor Pakan, President of the ABN AMRO Bank, presented to the audience the history, structure and operations of the bank. Also Pakan spoke about effectiveness of Good Governance in the banking activities and how ABN AMRO follows corporate principals to achieve the best level of services.
The seminar was continued by Charles Rudd, President of Interconcepts Inc. and representative of D&B (Dun and Bradstreet), with one of the important issues "Transparency – the keystone of corporate governance in banking sector". Rudd explained how transparency of the company is important for business conducting and told about existing D&B Ratings. Also Rudd presented the rating criteria and ratings of the banks operating in Uzbekistan. The audience was interested in the ratings and understood its importance.
Audit is one of the major aspects of the Good Governance, because it is present transparency level of the company, therefore it is very important for all banking operations. In this connection Saidrasul Bakiev, Audit Director in the Assurance and Advisory Business Service Department of Ernst & Young, spoke to the audience about the relevance of audit to banking and finance sector. Bakiev shared his experience in bank auditing, explained main aspects of the Good Governance that influence on audit in the banks.
Good Governance issue is very important to all enterprises, especially in banking and finance because companies work with and trust them. All respected companies and corporations create their Codes of Conduct that is main point of Good Governance. According to this, Dr. Tatiana Okunskaya, AmCham Executive Director spoke on the topic: "Codes of Conducts, The Experience of International companies". Okunskaya presented different types of Code of Conducts, explaining their importance and utility.
The international seminar provided a lot of useful information to the audience represented by leading bankers and financiers who, with gathered knowledge and practical applications, will develop the banking and finance sector to one of the highest levels.