About AvanFin Partners
The firm
AvanFin Partners is an advisory and technology firm based in Tashkent. We work with banks, non-bank financial institutions and financial-sector organisations in Uzbekistan and Central Asia across four domains: risk and compliance, finance and capital, technology and data, and strategy and transformation. The firm is led by three partners, who put together a team from a bench of senior advisors and specialists for each engagement.
We started the firm because the region's banks are changing fast, through new CBU requirements, international funding, privatisation and digital competition, and the advice available to them is often either international and generic, or local and thin. We aim to offer both: international standards, applied by people who know how Uzbek banks actually work, and carried through to systems that run.
Partners
Akmal Khamidov
Senior Partner & Co-founder · Tashkent
Akmal advises bank boards and management teams on risk, data and transformation. Over more than 17 years, Akmal has held senior roles inside Uzbek banks, including First Deputy CEO of Microcreditbank and Chief Risk Officer of Uzpromstroybank (SQB), after 11 years in the United States with JPMorgan Chase, PwC and Sanofi.
Areas of focus
- Risk management, credit risk and model risk
- Bank transformation and governance
- Data, analytics and AI
- Treasury and international funding
Selected experience
- As First Deputy CEO of Microcreditbank (2022–2024), helped steer the bank through a transformation in which it raised more than $400M from international financial institutions.
- Led Uzpromstroybank's $300M Eurobond on the London Stock Exchange while Chief Risk Officer and Advisor to the CEO (2019–2021).
- Headed SQB's risk function as Chief Risk Officer, then its technology function as Acting CTO.
- Chaired the Risk Committee of the Supervisory Board of the Mortgage Refinancing Company of Uzbekistan (2020–2022).
- Worked in wholesale credit risk analytics at JPMorgan Chase as Associate Vice President, after nearly five years in PwC's Advanced Risk & Compliance Analytics practice in New York.
Nodirbek helps CFOs and treasurers modernise finance: planning and performance, treasury and financial risk, and the data and AI tools behind them. A CFA charterholder with more than 17 years in Denmark and Uzbekistan, Nodirbek has advised Uzbekistan's Ministry of Finance on sovereign risk and hedging and led finance transformation work in PwC's CFO Advisory practice.
Areas of focus
- Finance transformation, FP&A and performance management
- Treasury, ALM and hedging
- Capital structure, international debt and investor relations
- AI-powered finance tools
Selected experience
- Advised Uzbekistan's Ministry of Finance on introducing risk management and hedging for a sovereign foreign-currency debt portfolio of about $36B, together with government treasury liquidity, the guarantee fund for foreign debt servicing, sovereign asset-liability management and the reform of derivatives law.
- In PwC Denmark's CFO Advisory practice, led finance transformation, treasury and financial risk engagements for clients in banking, pharmaceuticals, energy and commodities: operating model redesign, FX hedging, working capital, forecasting, budgeting, KPI design and post-merger integration.
- Advised Agrobank on investor relations, international debt financing and capital structure, started its risk management IT platform, coordinated its strategy work with international consultants, and built its cost allocation and profitability models.
- Builds AI prototypes with large language models, including a treasury management system, a debt collection tool and FP&A forecasting, so clients can see a working tool before building the production version with their IT teams.
- Led budget, contract management and executive reporting teams at Nordea Asset Management, and the development of its enterprise data management platform.
Kateryna works where credit risk, credit infrastructure and institutional reform meet. As CEO of Ukraine's International Bureau of Credit Histories and a World Bank Group consultant for more than a decade, Kateryna has helped banks, regulators and governments in over 12 countries strengthen credit risk management, resolve non-performing loans and deliver large transformation programmes.
Areas of focus
- Credit risk frameworks and underwriting
- Non-performing loans and collections
- Credit bureaus and credit reporting
- Institutional transformation and programme offices
Selected experience
- Leads IBCH, the International Bureau of Credit Histories in Ukraine, as Chief Executive Officer since 2020.
- For the World Bank Group (2015–2026), designed credit risk and non-performing loan frameworks, set up transformation programme offices and redesigned governance and organisation for state-owned and private financial institutions in 11 countries, including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
- Built capacity for banks, regulators and market infrastructure, and supported credit reporting and financial inclusion reforms.
- As Head of Retail Risk Management at Erste Bank Ukraine, ran the bank's retail credit risk management and led the reopening of retail and SME lending, centralised underwriting and centralised collections.
- Supported institutional reform at Uzbekistan's Ministry of Agriculture on a technical assistance project.
Our bench
Alongside the partners, each engagement draws on subject-matter experts who have done the work at senior level. We name them in our proposal, with their consent.
Technology
Former bank chief information, technology and digital officers who have migrated core banking systems, launched digital banks and mobile banking, and designed IT and information security architecture.
Compliance
A financial crime compliance specialist (CAMS) from global and Gulf banks and a leading screening-data provider, covering anti-money-laundering and sanctions programmes, screening, transaction monitoring and model validation.
Risk
Model development and validation specialists, and a bank restructuring adviser with three decades of crisis work in more than 50 countries alongside international financial institutions and national authorities.
Finance
A head of IFRS reporting (FCCA) who has worked on IFRS conversion and consolidation at a large state-owned bank, and capital markets specialists who worked on Uzbekistan's sovereign and bank Eurobonds and led relations with international financial institutions.
AI & data
Data engineers who build bank data warehouses, lakehouses and CBU regulatory reporting, a statistician with a doctorate in economics who works in machine learning, and founders of AI and fintech companies.
Who we work with
- Banks, state-owned and private
- Microfinance organisations and other non-bank lenders
- Digital banks and fintech companies
- Credit bureaus and other financial infrastructure
- Ministries, state-owned enterprises and development partners, on financial-sector reform