Kazakh investor Arif Babayev has become the owner of Ukrainian Region-Bank that was renamed Sky Bank, the bank's press service has reported.

"The Kazakh investor bought universal bank Region-Bank with 26 year experience on the Ukrainian market renaming it Sky Bank and focusing on development of IT solutions," the bank said on its website on Tuesday.

"We are making large investment in IT systems. We are careful about crediting and have a large cushion of liquid assets. This is guarantee of our security," the bank said, citing Babayev as saying.

Babayev from 2013 through 2016 was managing director of one of the largest banks in Kazakhstan Kazkommertsbank.

The process of replacing the key owner of Region-Bank was started in December 2016 when Babayev acquired 53.54% of shares from Kharkiv businessman and President of Kharkiv Banking Union Anatoliy Volok.

Region-Bank was founded in 1991. According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of May 15, 2017 its largest shareholder was Board Chairman Babayev (99.0935%).

The bank ranked 77th among 90 operating banks as of April 1, 2017, in terms of total assets worth UAH 325.253 million, according to the NBU.