Wednesday, October 31 2018 16:57

ArmInfo. Over the past 10 years, the population of Armenia has been investing more actively in banks. Deposits in banks grow by an average of 19% year-over-year,  which testifies to the stability of the banking system and high  public confidence. On October 31, Armenak Darbinyan, Member of the  Board of the Central Bank of Armenia, said on the sidelines of the  event dedicated to the World Savings Day.

Nevertheless, as he noted, there is still a lot of work to be done to  improve financial literacy, since according to the latest survey  results, the majority of citizens still keep money "under the pillow"  and not in a bank account. In this vein, he said that the Central  Bank is conducting a large-scale retraining program for teachers in  order to integrate financial education courses into the school  curriculum. "We believe that it is necessary to take care of  children's financial education from school years," he noted.

According to him, today, despite non-sufficient development of the  capital market, there is an active activity of the population in  terms of investments in government bonds. "In recent years, banks,  investment companies and the public are active in this direction. Any  investor strives to diversify his investments to reduce risks," A.  Darbinyan said.  Speaking about bank rates on loans and deposits, he  noted that Armenia, among similar countries, is the only one where  interest rates on loans are low due to a decrease in deposit rates.   According to the data of the Central Bank of Armenia, published by  the State Committee on average, interest rates on AMD deposits in  September 2018 were at the level of 8.63%, against 8.62% a year  earlier.  The volume of deposits attracted by Armenian banks in y-o-y  terms increased by 13.4%, and in the third quarter alone - by 7.1%,  reaching 2.812 trillion AMD by October 1, 2018.  However, in the  structure of deposits, the currency component increased by 10.3%  y-o-y, and only in the third quarter - by 9.5%, reaching 1.706  trillion AMD. At the same time, the dram component demonstrated a  y-o-y growth of 18.5%, while in the third quarter alone it increased  by 3.5%, reaching 1.106 trillion AMD. The share of foreign currency  deposits in the total volume of bank deposits traditionally prevails  over the share of dram deposits - 60.6% and 39.4%, respectively.  Population deposits in Armenian banks by October 2018 amounted to  1.393 trillion AMD, an increase of 11.7% in y-o-y terms, and in  quarter III alone- by 14.9%.