BIOGRAPHY

U Than Lwin is deputy chairman of Kanbawza Bank, the largest private financial institution in Myanmar. He joined the bank in 2004 as a consultant, after a long career at senior levels in government. He still engages in public service.

Mr. Than Lwin began his career as an economist in the Research and Training department at the Central Bank of Myanmar, from which he retired as deputy governor in 2003. During his years at the bank, he supervised balance-of-payment statistics and analysis with an emphasis on reserve management, before becoming a director in 1997. He was also controller of foreign exchange.

From 1994 to 1996, Mr. Than Lwin served as technical assistant to the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), taking part in the meetings, seminars, symposiums, and workshops of several multilateral bodies, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank.

A graduate of Yangon University, from which he received a degree in economics, Mr. Than Lwin also has a postgraduate diploma in economic planning from the Institute of Economics and has taken various training courses, including programs run by the IMF Institute in Washington, DC. He leads an advisory thinktank at the Myanmar Ministry of Finance and Revenue.

KANBAWZA BANK

Kanbawza Bank (KBZ Bank) was established in July 1994 in Taunggyi, the capital city of Shan state, the largest of Myanmar’s 14 administrative divisions. Its name refers to a traditional term for the state and one of its main ethnic groups; in its first years of existence, the bank operated only regionally.

In 2000,KBZ Bankmoved its headquarters to Yangon, the country’s business capital, and as of November 2013, it had 130 branches nationwide, making it Myanmar’s largest private retail financial institution. In 2011 bank received authorization from the Central Bank of Myanmar to offer accounts in foreign currency, taking first step toward operating a foreign banking business.

Recently, KBZ Bank has made moves to diversify. It now wholly own two airlines—Air KBZ and Myanmar Airways—and the IKBZ Insurance Public Company, one of 12 such institutions licensed to operate in 2012, which marks the return of private insurance to Myanmar after an absence of more than 50 years.