ArmInfo. Armenia's banking system sharply increased its retail lending by 15.4% in 2017 against a 1.3% decline in 2016. At the same time, the sector significantly reduced financing of corporate clients to minus 0.4% from positive 26.3% in 2016. As a result, the share of corporate loans in the total loan portfolio of the banking system for the past year decreased from 71.3% to 66.9%, in parallel with which the share of credit retail increased from 27.6% to 28.9%.
In the opinion of independent analysts, the change in the structure of the credit market occurred against the background of the growth in consumer prices for 2017 by 2.6%, triggered, in the main, by a rise in the price of food products by 5.3%, clothing and footwear by 4.4%, alcohol and cigarettes - 4%, gasoline and diesel fuel - an average of 18.5%. Moreover, the trend towards growth in consumer spending was supported by an increase in the inflow of private transfers - by 14.6% in 2017 to $ 1.757 billion.
It is noteworthy that in the period under review, there was a more significant decrease in interest rates for retail loans, rather than for corporate loans. In particular, according to AMD consumer loans, rates decreased for the year 2017 from 18.1% to 14.9%, and in dollar terms - from 14.4% to 12%, i.Ґ. the average rates for both and others fell from 16.3% to 13.5%. According to mortgage loans of individuals, rates decreased from 12.2% to 10.6%: from AMD to 12.9% to 11.2%, and on dollar loans - from 11.5% to 9.9%. At the same time, rates on corporate loans in 2017 declined on average from 10.6% to 9.4%, with a more significant decline recorded at the rates of AMD loans - from 12.6% to 10.7%, while the dollar rates changed insignificantly - from 8.5 to 8.2%.
Thus, according to independent analysts, the situation in the banking system of Armenia unequivocally speaks about the growth of consumer optimism in the country. However, this phenomenon relies mainly on positive expectations from the point of view of the population's assessment of its consumer opportunities, rather than on the overall growth of the economy. Despite the 7.5% GDP growth, the banking system, in fact, remained extremely conservative in terms of corporate clientele, which indicates a dominant business atmosphere of pessimism.