Tuesday, August 21 2012 20:36
Megaregulator following actions of "supervisees": Armenian Central Bank in response to Reuters' article
ArmInfo. Armenian Central Bank has disseminated a statement in response to the article published by Reuters Agency "Iran looks to Armenia to skirt bank sanctions". The Central Bank declares that the Armenian financial regulator is attentively following everything that may constitute threat to the financial stability of Armenia.
The statement says that all the banks operating in Armenia are under supervision of the Central Bank and function in compliance with the legislation of the Republic of Armenia, regulatory standards and legal acts of the Central Bank and internal regulatory acts of banks, which rules out their involvement into such operators or support to such operations. The Central Bank states that it requires all banks to scrutinize their transactions to avoid dubious financial exchanges.
The central bank statement said that Mellat Bank operating in Armenia since 1996 reduced its assets more than 50 percent from $88 million to $40 million between December 31, 2010 and July 1, 2012. Bank's customers are mainly SMEs involved in the commodity turnover of Armenia and Iran, as well as tourists and students. The bank has no correspondent accounts with any European, U.S. or Armenian banks.
The Central Bank's statement says that no Armenian bank has correspondent relations with banks or other financial organizations registered in Iran.
"The Central Bank of Armenia will follow its supervision over the behavior and transactions of all financial institutions and their customers in Armenia, in order to safeguard its financial system from any destabilizing effects," the statement says.
To recall, Reuters published the above article on August 21. It says: "With international sanctions squeezing Iran, the Islamic Republic is seeking to expand its banking foothold in the Caucasus nation of Armenia to make up for difficulties in countries it used to rely on to do business, according to diplomats and documents: Iran's growing interest in its neighbor Armenia, a mountainous, landlocked country of about 3.3 million people, comes at a time of rising international isolation for Tehran and increasing scrutiny by Western governments and intelligence agencies of Iranian banking ties worldwide as they attempt to stifle the country's nuclear program:. Washington recently raised its concerns with Armenian officials about the possibility that Iran could exploit Armenia to bypass sanctions. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the issue with President Serzh Sargsyan during a June meeting in Yerevan, a senior State Department official said."
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