ArmInfo. ARARATBANK and the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) have signed a synthetic loan agreement for a dram amount equivalent to $ 15 million, which will be used to develop micro and small businesses in Armenia. On April 3, the Chairman of the Board of ARARATBANK Ashot Osipyan informed this at a press conference.
According to A. Osipyan, loans to businesses will be provided with a maturity of up to 5 years at an average interest rate of 9% per annum, without restrictions in terms of the scope of activities. In particular, as he noted, over the years of cooperation with the Fund, approximately $ 63 million were attracted, which were directed to lending 2 thousand micro and small businesses in various sectors of the economy, including light industry, jewelry, services, trade , construction, etc.
At the same time, he noted that cooperation with EFSE is valuable, first of all, not due to attracted funds, but to technologies, technical re-equipment and management culture that the bank adopts and implements. In particular, in this vein, A. Osipyan emphasized the risk-oriented approach to conducting an audit introduced in 2015, thanks to which ARARATBANK today works in accordance with international standards. He also considered the mapping of operational risks as technological innovation.
In turn, the Chairman of the EFSE Council, Christoph Tiskens, noted that he was pleased with the long and successful cooperation with ARARATBANK.
Answering the question of ArmInfo regarding the Armenian economy, C.Tiskens noted that he had the impression of a generally satisfactory situation.
To note, the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) was established in 2005 with the aim of contributing to the development of the economy and general welfare in the countries of South-Eastern Europe, in particular Albania, Armenia, Ukraine, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania. The fund provides local financial institutions with long-term subsidies for lending to micro and small enterprises, as well as medium-sized enterprises and low-income private households. In general, since its establishment, EFSE has directed 922 million euros to finance commercial banks, microfinance institutions, and non-financial institutions, thereby making it possible to issue more than 247,000 loans to small and micro businesses and private households.
According to the Financial Ratings of Banks of Armenia as of December 31, 2018, prepared by ArmInfo IC, loan investments of ARARATBANK reached 126.5 billion drams ($ 261.6 million). In the loan portfolio of the bank, the share of loans to SMEs exceeds 45%, amounting to 57.7 billion drams in absolute terms (6th position in the market), with a y-o-y volume growth of 13.8%. And in total credit investments of banks in the sphere of SMEs, the share of ARARATBANK reaches 8%. 2019 ARARATBANK finished with a net profit of 2.3 billion drams ($ 4.7 million), with y-o-y growth of 9.7%. "ARARATBANK" OJSC has been operating since November 2005. Majority shareholders of ARARATBANK as of on January 1, 2019 are one of the largest oil traders in Armenia- Flash company with a share of 72.73% in the capital, Barsegh Beglaryan (well-known entrepreneur, the head of Flash)- 18.33%, Rural Impulse Fund II (part of the Belgian structure Incofin Investment Management - Incofin IM) - 8.58%.