USD transactions up, RUB ones down in Armenia`s interbank foreign exchange market June 16 to 20

ArmInfo. On the Armenian interbank currency market from June 16 to 20, 2025, dollar transactions jumped, while ruble transactions began to decline. Euro transactions have not  been conducted for the third week. In particular, the weekly trend of ruble transactions reversed from 7.1% growth to 73.3% decline, and for dollar transactions, the trend went from a 60% decline to an impressive growth of 2.3 times.

As a result, dollar transactions again began to prevail over ruble ones, and significantly - by 4.3 times, whereas a week earlier, ruble transactions prevailed over dollar ones (by 2 times). In parallel with this, in the intra-bank currency market for the reporting week (16-20.06.25 compared to 09-13.06.25) the purchase of dollars was in decline with a slowdown in sales growth, the purchase of euros went up with a slowdown in the decline in sales, and in ruble transactions both the purchase and sale lingered in decline with an imperceptible  slowdown in rates. As a result, from 16 to 20 June this year the dram continued to weaken against the dollar - from 384.5 to 386.8 drams/$1, while continuing to depreciate against the euro - from 442.5 to 443.8 drams/1 euro, and began to weaken against the ruble - from 4.78 to 4.89 drams/1 ruble. A year earlier, on June 20, 2024, the dram exchange rate to the dollar was 388 drams/$1, to the euro - 419 drams/1 euro, and to the ruble - 4.40 drams/1 ruble, which, compared to current rates, indicates an annual revaluation of the dram to the dollar, and a devaluation to the euro and ruble.

According to the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, dollar  transactions were conducted three times and ruble transactions only once on the interbank currency market from June 16 to 20 this year. During the reporting week, the platform was completely empty on Monday and Wednesday (June 16 and 18), both dollar and ruble transactions were conducted simultaneously on Friday (June 20), and on the remaining days only dollar transactions were made (Tuesday and Thursday - June 17 and 19). As a result, the total weekly volume of  dollar transactions amounted to $11 million with an average rate of 385.33 dr/$1 (versus 383.73 dr/$1 a week earlier), and the volume of a single ruble transaction amounted to 200 million rubles with an average rate of 4.91 dr/1RUB (versus 4.84 dr/1RUB a week earlier). The maximum volume of dollar transactions "appeared" on Friday (June 20) - $5.5 million.

On the intra-bank currency market from June 16 to June 20 of this year, in comparison with the previous week (09-13.06.25), the trend of buying up dollars reversed from 12% growth towards a 0.3% decline with a slowdown in sales growth from 7.1% to 2.4%, the trend of buying up euros, on the contrary, went from a 38.6% decline to a 17.8% growth with a slowdown in the decline in sales from 37% to 17.7%, and the trend of buying up and selling the ruble remained in decline with a slowdown in growth rates from 4.5-13.6% to 0.1-10.7%.  As a result, during the reporting week, $160.3 million was purchased at an average rate of 384.34 dr/$1, 40.3 million euros at an average rate of 438.85 dr/1EUR, and 16.1 billion rubles at an average rate of 4.85 dr/1RUB, and $266.9 million was sold at an average rate of 386.09 dr/$1, 43.7 million euros at an average rate of 447.29 dr/1EUR, and 1.99 billion rubles at an average rate of 4.96 dr/1RUB. The largest volume of dollar purchases occurred on Thursday (June 19 - $44.4 million) with the maximum sales on Wednesday (June 18 - $58.6  million), the largest volume of euro purchases was recorded on Friday (June 20 - 12.5 million euros) with the maximum sales on Thursday (June 19 - 11.4 million euros), Friday also saw the largest volume of ruble sales (June 20 - 526.4 million rubles) with the maximum purchase on Tuesday (June 17 - 3.9 billion rubles).

According to the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, in the first quarter of 2025, the Central Bank intervened in the foreign exchange market in February and March alone for a total of $94 million, strengthening the exchange rate from 394.19 drams/$1 in February to 393.14 drams/$1 in March, and these were only purchase operations.

In the intra-bank foreign exchange market, in the first quarter of  2025, $1.5 billion, 444.5 million euros and 171.8 billion rubles were purchased, and $2.2 billion, 892.2 million euros and 51.1 billion rubles were sold.  This formed the purchase rate on the intra-bank foreign exchange market in March at the level of 390.77 dr/$1, 419.57 dr/1 euro and 4.53 dr/1 ruble, and the sale rate at the level of 394.14 dr/$1, 426.95 dr/1 euro and 4.65 dr/1 ruble, against the December 2024 394.84 dr/$1, 413.75 dr/1 euro, 3.84 dr/1 ruble - for purchase, and 398.16 dr/$1, 420.09 dr/1 euro, 3.97 dr/1 ruble - for sale. In the interbank currency market in Q1 2025, dollar transactions totaling $191 million and ruble transactions totaling 6.8 billion rubles were made, while euro transactions were made only in February-March for a total of 1.7 million euros. This was accompanied by a weakening of the dram against the ruble and euro on the interbank currency market to March's 4.54 drams/1 ruble and 426.25 drams/1 EUR, and a slight strengthening against the dollar to  393.65 drams/$1, from December 2024's 3.84 drams/1 ruble, 414.25 drams/1 EUR, and 396.1 drams/$1, respectively. On the interbank currency market for this period, the largest volume of dollar transactions was made in January ($81 million), ruble transactions in March (2.95 billion rubles), and euro transactions in February (1 million euros).

The currency exchange platform, after eight years of "silence", began to operate in June 2024 and in five months (June-October) dollar transactions were carried out for a total of $14.7 million, accompanied by the strengthening of the dram from June 388.90 to October 387.75 drams/$1. In November-December, the currency exchange platform was empty. Then in 2025, in the first quarter, dollar transactions for $1.850 million were carried out on the currency exchange platform, accompanied by the strengthening of the dram from  January 398.75 to March 393.14 drams/$1.

Ruble transactions on the interbank currency market of Armenia started on March 14, 2022 and from that moment until the end of the year, transactions worth 8.7 billion rubles were carried out, and another 17.5 billion rubles for the whole of 2023. This was accompanied by a weakening of the dram against the ruble on the interbank currency market in March-December 2022 from 4.86 to 5.8 drams/1 ruble, but then there was a strengthening of the dram against the ruble to 4.47 drams/1 ruble by the end of 2023 and further to 3.84 drams/1 ruble by the end of 2024.