ArmInfo.The National Assembly of Armenia at its meeting on June 19 in the second and final reading adopted the draft amendments to the law "On Consumer Lending" and in the package of related laws proposed by the RA government.
Presenting the draft, the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia Nerses Yeritsyan stressed that by the second reading there were no new proposals from the MPs and the government, however, the authors of the document themselves decided to make some amendments on the first reading. Nerses Yeritsyan reminded that the draft law clarifies and defines the concepts of "microenterprise," "small enterprises and companies." Also, according to the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, the draft law more clearly explains the mechanisms for applying fines, aligning them with the requirements of the law "On Mortgage Lending ". The Central Bank, in particular, proposes to raise the threshold of consumer credit, increasing it from the previous 2 million drams to 5 million drams. The lower credit limit of 100 thousand drams is removed." We also suggest that the micro enterprises be added to this list", Yeritsyan noted. He stressed that one of the areas of consumer lending is agriculture, which plays a significant role in the structure of the country's economy, helping to form more than 20% of the gross domestic product and providing employment for about 40% of the country's citizens. As of June 30, 2018, commercial banks and credit companies provided loans totaling 216.5 billion drams for the development of agriculture, of which 157.7 billion drams were provided by banks and 58.8 billion drams by credit companies. At the same time, the state subsidizes attracted credit resources in the amount not exceeding 3 million drams in the amount of 4% of the annual rate which makes 14% on average in the market. For the most needy agricultural communities, 6% are subsidized. In order to develop agricultural production, it is also proposed to establish certain conditions for crediting, first of all, the obligations of lenders to disclose full information on loan payments. An obligatory additional condition is the electronic notification of payments from customers of banks and credit institutions. In case of violation of the terms of the agreement, banks and credit organizations undertake to pay customers a fine of 300 thousand drams.