ArmInfo. In Armenia, the number of plastic cards increased in the first quarter of 2018 at 14.9% per annum - up to 1.785 million units, against the decline of 10.8% a year earlier.  Adequately, the annual growth in the total volume of plastic transactions from 0.8% in the first quarter of 2017 to 38.6% in the first quarter of 2018 was dramatically accelerated, making 440.6 bln AMD. This is evidenced by the data of the Central Bank of Armenia.

ArmInfo. 

ArmInfo. Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia disproves the existence of corruption risks in the process of  implementation of the state program for the purchase of agricultural machinery in leasing. This was stated by the head of the department Ignaty Arakelyan at a meeting with journalists, commenting on information about abuses in the framework of the state program.

ArmInfo. In the banking system of Armenia, the concentration of assets among the top five leaders in this indicator increased in 2012-2017 from 46.5% to 55.2%. This amount of assets is distributed between Ameriabank, Armbusinessbank, Ardshinbank, ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank and INECOBANK.  According to the Financial Rating of the Armenian Banks as of January 1, 2018, prepared by the Information Company ArmInfo, TOP-5 for credit investments includes the same banks with a total share in the total market value of 59.1% of the total loan portfolio. In 2012, the share of the leading five is 47.1%.

ArmInfo. The share of foreign capital in the total authorized capital of Armenian banks decreased from 2014 to 2017 from 74.6% to 61.8%. During this period, four participants emerged from the banking market, of which three were "daughters" of foreign banks. This is the German ProCredit Bank, Kazakhstan's BTA and Russian Gazprombank.

ArmInfo. "INECOBANK" CJSC became a  member of the securities settlement system of the Central Depository  of Armenia (CDA). As reported to ArmInfo in the press service of  NasdaqOMX Armenia, this took place on February 28. Thus, the Bank has  been assigned the status of a depository system account operator.

ArmInfo. Ardshinbank,  Armbusinessbank and UCC "Development and Investment Corporation of  Armenia" (DICA, formerly referred to as UCC "Investments") have  joined the state program of subsidizing interest rates on  agrocredits. ArmInfo was informed about this in the press service of  the RA Ministry of Agriculture.

ArmInfo."The success of the bank is continuous: due to the right strategy and its careful implementation, we have improvements almost in all positions. The most important achievement, of course, is the high level of profit. AMD 7 bln net profit ensured the first position by ROE in the system" said Chief Financial Officer Hayk Voskanyan.

ArmInfo. In Armenia, against  the background of a fall in property prices, the mortgage is gaining  momentum. According to the Financial Rating of the Armenian Banks  prepared by IC ArmInfo, parallel to this, the volume of bank mortgage  lending came out of the 1.5% decline by 14.4%, to 215.2 billion drams  or $ 444.5 million, which was accompanied by a decrease in mortgage  rates loans for 2017 from 12.2% to 10.6% on average. Meanwhile, over  the past year the average market value of housing has decreased by  2.8% (against growth of 0.6% in 2016).

ArmInfo. In Armenia, the number of plastic cards increased by 9.2% in 2017 to 1.715 million units, against the decline of 9.2% a year earlier. Adequately this has been improved by the trend of the total volume of plastic transactions with the exit from the 2.1% decline in 2016 by 11.8% growth in 2017 - to 1.6 trillion AMD. Central Bank's data reads.

ArmInfo. On February 7, memorandums were signed with this purpose with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas Economic Development Programmes Implementation Unit.

ArmInfo.  In 2017, the Armenian banking system sent 40.1 billion AMD of taxes to the state treasury, which is 16.6% higher than the figure of a year ago. Of this amount, over 89% or 35.7 billion AMD was paid on direct taxes (including income tax and income tax), with an annual growth of 18.6%.

ArmInfo. Converse Bank  proceeds to subsidized agroloaning.  The Memorandum of Cooperation  within the framework of the program of subsidizing interest rates on  loans for the laying of intensive fruit-and-berry gardens processed  using advanced technologies and for the installation of drip  irrigation systems and anti-hail systems was signed by the Director  for Corporate Business of Converse Bank Rostom Badalyan, Deputy  Minister of Agriculture Ashot Harutyunyan and acting director of the  office for the implementation of programs for the economic  development of rural communities Vahe Harutyunyan.

ArmInfo. Minister of Armenian  Agriculture Ministry Ignatiy Arakelyan on February 5 during the  meeting with the representatives of the company, dealing with  reprocessing of fruit and vegetable crops and grapes, called on not  to delay the process of concluding agreements with farmers to  purchase the harvest.

ArmInfo. Deputy Minister of  Agriculture Ashot Harutyunyan, Ph.D. Director of the Office for the  Implementation of the Agricultural Development Program Vahe  Harutyunyan, Chief Executive Officer of the UCC "Farm Credit Armenia"  Armen Gabrielyan and Deputy Chief Executive of Armswissbank Grigor  Hovhannisyan signed a memorandum on cooperation in subsidizing  interest rates on loans for intensive fruit and berry gardens using  advanced technologies, to install drip irrigation systems and  anti-hail grids.

ArmInfo. In 2018, the loan  portfolio of the pilot program for companies engaged in processing  fruit and vegetable crops and grapes will be about 18 billion AMD,  and the maximum loan amount per one borrower is 1 billion AMD. This  was reported by the press service of the RA Ministry of Agriculture.

ArmInfo. INECOBANK increased  net profit for the year of 2017 by 36.2% to 7.02 billion AMD ($ 14.5  million), having moved up from the 3rd to the 2nd position.

ArmInfo. In 2018, in Armenia  within the framework of the program on subsidizing interest rates for  enterprises engaged in the processing of agricultural products, the  companies will be able to attract credit resources to 1 billion AMD  against the previously established 150 million AMD. ArmInfo was  informed about this in the Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia.

ArmInfo. The Armenian Agriculture Ministry announced the start of subsidized agro-credit programs. As the press service of the agency told ArmInfo, ACBA-Credit Agricole and INEKOBANK RA Ministry of Agriculture and the program implementation office for the economic development of rural communities signed memorandums on cooperation in the implementation of programs to subsidize interest rates of agrocredits.

ArmInfo. Contrary to the slowdown in the growth of lending, the banks of Armenia are making quite a high profit. According to the Express-Ranking of Armenian Banks, prepared by the Rating service of the IArmInfo Information Company , the growth rate of crediting in 2016-2017 from 16.5% slowed to 4.3%, however, the aggregate net profit of the banking system from negative dynamics in 26.4% in 2016 went to the positive 15.6%. It is noteworthy that the investments of banks in securities increased in 2017 more significantly - by 22.3%, rather than lending volumes, and at the same time, the balances on nostro accounts (including in the Central Bank) increased significantly.