Markaryants Miguel

Markaryants Miguel

Biography

2024: Appointment as ATB Board Chairman

On June 18, 2024, it became known that the Asia-Pacific Bank (ATB), owned by Kazakhstani investors, appointed a new chairman of the board. It was the former head of the retail block of Promsvyazbank (PSB) Miguel Markaryants.

According to the Kommersant newspaper, Markaryants will replace Marat Jaukenov, who took up this position in September 2023, as head of the ATB board. It is expected that in the new place Markaryants will deal with digitalization issues. ATB shareholders at the end of 2022 announced plans to implement a strategy aimed at digitally transforming the bank's business, as well as "actively developing retail and corporate products."

Financial Daria Anikina, head of practices at the "institutes" of the company for the selection of senior executives at Ward Howell, notes that while working at PSB, Markaryants has already carried out a digital transformation of retail. In addition, the change of chairman of the board may have been required by ATB to improve the profitability of the business. According to financial expert Andrei Barkhota, the normalized return on capital of the bank is 14-18%. For comparison, the average value for the industry, according to the Central Bank, in 2023 was at the level of 26%.

At the same time, the head of the board of directors of Top Contact Artur Shamilov believes that the appointment of Markaryants is associated with the development of the "digital retail and small business" ATB. In particular, the bank can develop through "cross-products and ecosystems of non-banking services, including e-commerce." At the same time, Shamilov notes that in the Far East there is a high level of loyalty to local players and the influence of financial organizations from Southeast Asia. And therefore, according to the head of the board of Top Contact, "it is necessary to compete with them in terms of digitalization and services."^[1]

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