Kont Investment Bank was a Tajiki

investment bank Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...

operating in

Dushanbe Dushanbe is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajiks, Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as St ...

, under license from

National Bank of Tajikistan The National Bank of Tajikistan () is the central bank of Tajikistan. The Bank is engaged in developing policies to promote financial inclusion and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. Deposits in the National Bank of Tajikistan ...

. The bank's chairman was Fayzullo Salikhov. On March 30, 2017, the bank was renamed Bank Asia (Bonki Osiyo).

History

The Kont Investment Bank was founded in 2011 by Iranian entrepreneur

Babak Zanjani Babak Zanjani (, born 12 March 1974) is an Iranian billionaire and business magnate. He was the managing director of the UAE-based Sorinet Group, one of Iran's largest business conglomerates. In late 2013, he was arrested and accused of withholdi ...

, who held investments in several Tajik businesses, including a bank, an airline, a taxi service, and a bus terminal that Tajik President Imomali Rahmon himself helped inaugurate in March 2013. The bank came under scrutiny by the US Treasury Service, as a possible

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

entity which was suspected of moving large sums of oil-related money on behalf the Iranian government. Zanjani reportedly sold the bank in 2015, and was then wholly owned by R. S. Saidov.

References

{{Banks in Tajikistan Banks of Tajikistan Companies based in Dushanbe