"Armenian Banking Days" were held in the capital of Austria

ArmInfo. The day before, "Armenian Banking Days" were held for the first time in the capital of Austria. The initiator of the Vienna event was the Union of Armenian Banks together with Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI).

Raiffeisen Bank International is one of the largest Austrian banking groups specializing in corporate banking with headquarters in Vienna. In addition to Austria, it operates in 14 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, serving 17.2 million clients.

The event was held to promote closer cooperation between the financial sectors of Armenia and Europe.

Within the framework of the Days, working discussions were held, followed by an official reception attended by representatives of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy and Tourism of Austria, the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, the Austrian Economic Chamber, the Austrian Development Agency, as well as the heads of the Central Bank of Armenia, the Union of Armenian Banks, commercial banks and other financial organizations.

Having expressed gratitude to Raiffeisen Bank International for organizing the event and, in particular, for the partner support of the Armenian banking system, the Chairman of the Union of Armenian Banks Daniel Azatyan noted that the discussions provided the parties with the opportunity to exchange ideas, discuss current issues in the sector and identify new horizons for cooperation

“The purpose of this event is not only to conclude a day of fruitful discussions, but also to reaffirm our common vision for the future. We believe that dialogue should go beyond official meetings and become a permanent tradition. By creating a culture of regular exchange of opinions and trust, we can ensure that our cooperation will not be limited to today's issues, but will contribute to long-term stability, innovation and integration of the Armenian financial system into a broader European and global framework,” said Daniel Azatyan, Chairman of the Union of Banks of Armenia.

It should be noted that the presence of foreign capital in the Armenian banking system, which consists of 17 banks, is currently quite limited. The latest event in this context was the exit of the HSBC Banking Group from the market - in 2024, Ardshinbank acquired HSBC Bank Armenia. Taking into account HSBC's exit from Armenia, there are only three banks operating in the country's banking sector "daughters" of foreign banks: VTB (RF), Mellat (Iran), Byblos Bank (Lebanon). In addition, the presence in the capital of international institutional investors in the person of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which participated in the capital of Ameriabank, has also decreased. where the share of EBRD has decreased to 10%, and the share of ADB has been zeroed out. Today, the majority shareholder of Ameriabank (90%) is Bank of Georgia Group PLC (BOGG) and JSC Bank of Georgia.