Wednesday, April 28 2010 18:39
VTB Bank (Armenia) is reducing USD loan and deposit interests
ArmInfo. VTB Bank (Armenia) is planning to shortly reduce the interests on its USD loans and deposits, Director General-Chairman o the Board of VTB Bank (Armenia) Valery Ovsyannikov said during a press-conference today.
He said that the USD rates will be reduced by 1.5%-2%, the AMD rates will not be changed for the time being. "Good borrowers may enjoy 10%-12% interest. Our bank is ready for this," Ovsyannikov said. He said that today the USD/AMD loan-deposit ratio is almost 50/50.
Shortly, the bank is going to introduce a new product for low-interest medium-sized business lending. In late 2009 the amount of loans provided to legal entities totalled 50bln AMD, physical entities - 24bln AMD.
Ovsyannikov said that the Central Bank's special foreign exchange position requirement will stimulate additional AMD inflows into the economy. "The situation over AMD should get stable. Armenia does not have many companies earning foreign exchage from export, especially in SME, which is one of our priorities this year," Ovsyannikov said.
VTB Bank (Armenia) reports that in 2009 the bank's assets grew by 20.7% to 119bln AMD (3rd place in the banking system), credit portfolio by 3.9% to 73.6bln AMd (3rd place). Last year the bank increased its share in total corporate crediting to 12%. The profit was 0.9bln AMD.