ArmInfo. There is no significant growth in non-performing loans in the banking system of Armenia, moreover, they are at a manageable level. On June 15 newly elected Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia Martin Galstyan announced this during a meeting of the NA Standing Committee on Financial and Budgetary Issues.
In particular, he did not exclude that the policy of the Armenian commercial banks, which in the context of the pandemic was aimed at supporting citizens in terms of deferring payments on loan obligations, will affect the quality of the loan portfolio of the Armenian banking system. At the same time, the head of the Central Bank noted that the existing economic situation will also affect the quality of the portfolio.
In this context, he said that according to the latest information, the commercial banks of the Republic of Armenia revised their loan obligations of 550 thousand individuals and 17.4 thousand legal entities. Deferred payments totaled about 100 billion drams. "Our main vision, is that: In the conditions of the crisis caused by the pandemic the banking system of the Republic of Armenia will be able to provide assistance to citizens as much as possible," Galstyan said.
It should be noted that in the total loan portfolio of Armenian banks the NPL level for the Q1 of 2020 "remained" at 8%, and in assets - at the level of 5.2%, but in comparison with the indicators a year ago (8.5% and 6.2 % respectively) turned out to be lower. At the same time, the volume of overdue loans in y- o-y terms showed a miserable decline, while the size of healthy (standard) loans accelerated growth from 16% to 17.5% .