Kazakh Watchdog Says Not Aware of Kookmin Deal

ALMATY (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's state financial watchdog, a body supervising banking mergers, said on Tuesday South Korea's Kookmin Bank 060000.KS had not approached it about buying a stake in a mid-size Kazakh bank.

Shares in top South Korean lender Kookmin Bank rose more than 2 percent on Tuesday after a local newspaper reported the bank was buying up to half of Kazakhstan's No. 6 bank, CenterCredit CCBN.KZ, for 1 trillion won ($1 billion). [nSEO94480]

"We have received no documents asking for approval," Yelena Bakhmutova, head of the Kazakhstan financial markets supervision agency, told Reuters by telephone.

According to Kazakh legislation, financial institutions seeking to buy shares of a Kazakh bank must first get permission from the agency.

The Kazakh bank's spokeswoman declined to comment.

(Reporting by Tatyana Seroshtanova; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Lincoln Feast)