Saturday, October 2 2010 01:32
European Fund for Southeast EuropE provides ARARATBANK with a loan worth 5 mln USD for SME financing
ArmInfo. The European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) has provided ARARATBANK with a loan worth 5 mln USD aimed to finance micro-, small and medium enterprises mostly located in remote and rural regions, the press service of ARARATBANK told ArmInfo.
According to the source, the loan is provided to ARARATBANK within the EFSE frames, which serves the EU Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. ARARATBANK has a great experience in the sphere of crediting of micro-, small and medium enterprises; in particular, in 2009 small business crediting grew by 127% , and medium business crediting – by 51%.
Chairman of Board and Executive Director of ARARATBANK Ashot Osipyan pointed out that the cooperation with EFSE is a premise of more active development of financing of micro, small and medium enterprises. "It is a great honor for us to cooperate with EFSE, which has a great experience in working with banking and financial institutions in Europe and the CIS. I think our cooperation with EFSE will be effective",- he stressed.
Chairman of the EFSE Board of Directors Klaus Glaubitt said that the loan provided to Armenia aims to consolidate the partnership. He added that thanks to ARARATBANK, the Fund may expand its territorial presence, and the bank will receive an opportunity to finance about 320 micro and small enterprises.
To note, EFSE launched its activity in Armenia in December 2009. This is the second loan provided by EFSE in Armenia. As regards the first loan (10 mln USD), Converse Bank received it from EFSE in June 2010.
According to the Ranking of Commercial Banks of Armenia by the Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo), as of 1 July 2010 the assets of ARARATBANK amounted to 42.7 bln AMD. In the structure of assets over 52% fell on provision of crediting, about 66% of which fell on the loans provided to economy.