Tuesday, September 6 2011 15:54
Armenian Central Bank inspects off-shores of shareholders of Armenian banks
ArmInfo. It is no secret that the practice of using the off-shores is widely spread in the banking system of Armenia. But how much adequate is to preserve such a direction in the banking system of the country today, when in the conditions of fighting consequences of the global financial and economic crisis the leading countries of the world have already started fighting this phenomenon? Arminfo correspondent asked press-service of Armenian Central Bank and received the following reply:
In the banking system of Armenia a part of foreign capital is the capital of the non-residents of the republic. If a non-resident, registered in the off-shore zones, becomes a participant in the bank, he should get preliminary accord of Central Bank, irrespective of the size of participation in the authorized capital of the bank. The Central Bank fully inspects the future participant with a purpose to elicit the beneficiary owner of the bank.
At the same time, the policy conducted by Central Bank stimulates entrance of the known institutional investors with high rating in the banking system of the country. Thus, if a legal person with high rating of the world rating agencies, becomes a participant in the bank, when calculating the normative of the minimal level of total capital, the sum of the capital stock is calculated fivefold increased.
As for the view about watching Armenia like de-facto an off-shore zone, Central Bank reported that as a rule the off-shore zones are the countries with a legislation which badly regulates the process of registration of companies, as well as the so called "tax havens". Taking into account the above mentioned factors regarding full disclosing of information against the regulatory body, as well as the acting rather strict tax legislation, Armenia cannot be considered an off-shore zone or jurisdiction.
Asked about the practice of crediting of off-shore companies by commercial banks of the country, and if legislative tightening is foreseen in case of crediting of residents or non-resident-off-shores, press-service of Armenian Central Bank replied: " Armenian banks themselves control their risks and are free to choose the activity and crediting policy. But in case of crediting of the off-shore companies, the banks should observe some extra requirements. In particular, according to part 8 of the law 15 of the Republic of Armenia "On fighting money laundry and financing terrorism", in case of availability of the high risk factor, the bank should hold additional inspection of a customer, which means to get, analyze and revise the information and documents of a borrower and the bargain.
To note, according to the data of Armenian Central Bank, the share of foreign capital in the aggregate authorized fund of the banking system of Armenia grew by 4.1% in the 2Q 2011 and by 1 July amounted to 158.2 bln drams ($446.4 mln).
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