Banker: The banking system of Armenia has been developing extensively

Arminfo, The banking system of Armenia has been developing extensively for the last three years, a member of the CJSC "Ameriabank" directorate, Tigran Jrbashyan, said at today's press-conference. He said that the active crediting by the banks against the background of the harsh market competition was accompanied by dropping of the indicators of effectiveness of their activity and profitability.

"Today, in general, the indicators of effectiveness in the banking system are rather low, especially at small banks. So, the first task of the system is raising of effectiveness of activity", - he said. According to the results of 2014, ROA of the banking system of Armenia was only 1, which is more than the indicators in the countries of Eastern Europe, but less than in the CIS countries. In particular, according to the results of 2014, ROA of the banking sector of Azerbaijan was 1,8, Belarus - 2 and Georgia - 3. Jrbashyan also added that ROE of the banking system of Armenia is also much lower than in many CIS countries. According to the results of 2014, ROE in Armenia was 6,9, while in Azerbaijan it reached 12,6, in Belarus - 14,5 and Georgia - 17,5. "Undoubtedly, this makes it difficult for the Armenian banks to attract extra capital taking into consideration the fact that all the countries of the region have almost similar risks, and profitability of the banking sector of Armenia lags behind similar indicators of other CIS countries twofold or even threefold", Jrbashyan said. He said that in 2014 the average income-to-expense ratio in Armenia's banking system was 54.4 against 35-37 in the world. "This shows that CIS and Armenian banks are less efficient than the global banking system," Jrbashyan said. He said that over the last three years Armenia's banking system has grown much faster than the country's GDP. In 2014 bank loans accounted for 40.7 of the GDP - almost as much as in Russia.