Valērijs Kargins


Valērijs Kargins is a Latvian economist and banker was the president of Parex Banka, from 1998 to 2008. Kargin is from Latvia. He and Viktor Krasovitsky have accumulated over 200 million lats together. He created the first travel agency and the first currency exchange corporation in the Soviet Union.

Biography

Kargins was born in Riga on March 27, 1961. In 1983, he finished the faculty of journalism at the University of Latvia. Then, from 1983 to 1991, he opened one of the first travel agencies in the Soviet Union, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Then, between 1988 and 1992, he became the director of Parex corporation, which is a travel agency and currency exchange. In 1991, he became the first to create a currency exchange corporation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The following year, he became the president of Parex Bank. From 1998 to 2008, he was the president and the chairman of Parex Bank.