Wednesday, March 3 2010 18:02
General obligations of Armenian banking system up 33% to $2.8 bln in 2009
ArmInfo. General obligations of the banking system of Armenia were up 33% in 2009 (versus 31% growth for 2008), 19.2% in the second half and amounted to 1.1 trillion drams ($2.8 billion) on Dec 31. For Q4 alone general obligations of the banking system of Armenia were up 6% versus 6.5% for Q4 2008. The share of time deposits in general obligations was 40.8% on Dec 31 2009, and the share of call liabilities was 25.9%. Deposits and loans provided by banks and other financial organizations totaled 23.7% and bank correspondent accounts (loro) totaled 1.3% of general obligations. These indicators amounted to 432 bln drams, 274.4 bln drams, 251.5 bln drams and 13.6 bln drams, respectively.
Analysis and Ranking of the Armenian Banking System prepared by the Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo) say time deposits grew 52.5% in 2009, call liabilities - 35.5%, bank correspondent accounts (loro) - almost 42% and deposits and loans provided by the banks and other financial organizations were up almost 60%. In Q4 alone, time deposits grew 14%, call liabilities - 10%, whereas in Q4 2008 these indicators were up 0.4% and 14%, respectively. Deposits and loans provided by the banks and other financial organizations grew 73% and loro-accounts - 77% for Q4 2009. Dynamics of liability
structure shows that commercial banks raise funds both from the domestic and external sources, as well as participate in
international credit programs, to maintain lending despite the crisis. The deeper was the crisis the more intensively banks got involved in international credit programs and raised long-term and inexpensive funds to on-lend on favorable terms. It is noteworthy that the banks involved in the WB SME support programs began funding the small and medium-sized enterprises in late June 2009. Alongside with this, the banks got an opportunity to maintain lending on the funds from the Russian stabilization loan.
Call liabilities of 8 banks were down for Q4 2009, whereas the other banks showed growth of call liabilities for the given period of time. Call liabilities of the following banks suffered the most significant decline for Q4: Ameriabank - 17.1% (the 10th position by the amount of call liabilities), HSBC Bank Armenia - 11.2% (1st position), and Ardshininvestbank - 11.1% (3rd position). BTA Bank Armenia showed the highest quarterly growth - almost 3 times (22nd position). Call liabilities of Cascade Bank suffered the most significant decline per year - 30.2% (16th position) , whereas this indicator of ProCredit Bank grew over two times per year (18th position). Top three of leaders of the amount of call liabilities comprises HSBC Bank Armenia (65.4 bln drams), Converse Bank (27.1 bln drams) and Ardshininvestbank (24.7 bln drams). Time deposits of the most of banks fell in Q2, whereas in Q3-Q4 this indicator of only 5 banks suffered decline. The remaining 17 banks grew. Time deposits of only one bank suffered decline per year, the remaining 21 banks ensured growth. The most significant decline of time deposits for Q4 2009 was registered at ArmSwissbank - 21.1% (17th position by the volume of
time deposits). ARARATBANK ensured the highest growth of this indicator for Q4 - over two times (11th position). Anelik Bank proved the only bank to show annual decline of time deposits - 6.9% (14th position). Ameriabank ensured the highest growth of time deposits per year - almost 4 times (2nd position).
Top five of leaders by the volume of deposits were Unibank - 73.2 bln drams, Ameriabank - 54.3 bln drams,Ardshininvestbank -51.9 bln drams, HSBC Bank Armenia - 40.9 bln drams and ACBA Credit Agricole Bank - 33.5 bln drams. The share of these banks was nearly 60% of summary time deposits of the Armenian banking system. The largest share of time deposits placed with Unibank, Ardshininvestbank, HSBC Bank Armenia and ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank belonged to individuals, whereas in Ameriabank the share of deposits of legal entities was the largest.
HSBC Bank Armenia was the leader by the share of the call liabilities in general obligations as of Dec 31 2009 - 55.1%. Byblos Bank Armenia was the leader by the share of the time deposits in total - 80.2% (15th position by the volume of time deposits). The annual dynamics of changes in call liabilities and time deposits of ProCredit Bank is available starting Feb 2008 when the bank entered the Armenian market.
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