Wednesday, May 12 2010 14:32
Assets of Armenian banking system up 4.5% to $3.5bn for Q1 2010
ArmInfo. Assets of the Armenian banking system were up 4.5% to $3.5bn for Q1 2010 versus 10.2% growth for Q1 2009. Assets grew 24.2% per year to 1.418 trillion drams ($3.5bn) as of March 31 2010.
Ranking of Armenian Commercial Banks prepared by Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo) says the assets grew per year thanks to the 23% growth of provision of crediting, 31% growth of investing in government bonds, 62% growth of funds on nostro-accounts, and 15% growth of cash. The growth of assets for Q1 2010 was conditioned by 6.7% growth of the loan portfolio (versus 4.6% growth for Q1 2009), 2.5% growth of cash (versus 34% growth for Q1 2009), 23% growth of nostro-accounts (exclusive of correspondent accounts with the Armenian Central Bank) (versus 13% decline for Q1 2009), as well as by 6.3% decline in investing in government bonds (versus 16% decline for Q1 2009).
The share of loans in assets was 58.6% (versus 57.8% for Q4 2009 and 59.2% for Q1 2009). The share of investing in government bonds was 6% (versus 6.7% for Q4 2009 and 5.6% for Q1 2009). The ArmInfo experts say that the quarterly decline of investing in government bonds almost as much as the growth of the share of loans in assets shows that banks continue lending to economy sectors at the expense of the portfolio of government bonds and the funds on nostro-accounts and cash. Banks still lay the stress in lending to economy sectors and refrain from retail lending. As of March 31 2010 top three banks by assets were ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, HSBC Bank Armenia, VTB Bank (Armenia) and Ardshininvestbank. The share of these banks is nearly 40% of total assets of the banking system encompassing 22 commercial banks.
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