ArmInfo. In 2016, Armenian Central Bank, in virtue of its consequent works and trust obtained, has secured price and financial sustainability and essentially decreased inflation expectations, the Central Bank Chairman stated at New Year banquette party, summarizing 2016 results. 

ArmInfo. The client base of Armenia's banking system by October 2016 numbered 2 375 223 physical and 79 174 legal entities.  According to the National Statistic Service of Armenia, 2 454 397 clients had 4 493 879 accounts in Armenia's banks, from which 4 310 188 are accounts of physical entities and 183 691 of legal entities.

ArmInfo. Armenian Government  took an objective to decrease the consumption of primary energy for  38%,Hayk Harutyunyan, the Deputy Minister of Energetic Infrastructure  and Natural resources stated at the press conference  on November 23,  while presenting priorities and coming reforms of the field,  proceeding from the Government program. 

ArmInfo. ARARATBANK has replenished total capital by 8.5 bln drams due to issue of stocks. As a result the authorized capital of the bank has increased to 16.8 bln drams and total capital almost to 33 bln drams.

ArmInfo. Within mandatory accumulative pension system the number of participants of the two pension funds-C-QUADRAT Ampega Asset Management Armenia and Amundi-ACBA- Asset-Management has reached 155 thousand people by November 1, 2016. 65 thousand of them are representatives of state sector and remaining 90 thousand of private sector. The press-service of the Armenia's Central Bank has told ArmInfo that from the moment of creation of these two funds (November 2013) their yield has reached 25.9% (the cost of one common share has grew from 1000 to 1259 drams). For the 10 months of 2016 yield of the pension funds totaled annual average 14.4%.

ArmInfo. By September 2016,  the customer base of the Armenian banking system had 2,361,208  individuals and 79,055 legal entities. According to the National  Statistical Service of Armenia, as many as 2,440,263 customers had  4,466,712 accounts in Armenian banks, including 4,284,043 accounts of  individuals and 182,669 accounts of legal entities.

ArmInfo. In Jan-Sept 2016 the banking system of Armenia paid 27.9 bln AMD or $58.9 mln in taxes, 12.5% less than in Jan-Sept 2015. The share of direct taxes (including profit tax and income tax) was over 89% or 25.1 bln AMD, 13.1% less than in Jan-Sept 2015.  The share of commercial banks in the total amount of taxes paid by top 1000 taxpayers was 5.3%. The top 1000 taxpayers paid a total of 525 bln AMD ($1.1 bln) in taxes in Jan-Sept 2016.

ArmInfo. By the end of 2016, the number of the Armenian banking market participants will be 17, i.e. the number will decline by 2 commercial banks. In October 2016, Areximbank-Gazprombank Group announced its withdrawal from the market. Its parental structure – the Russian Gazprombank - preferred to sell its subsidiary to Ardshinbank instead of undertaking capitalization, which was also done out of necessity to cover big losses. The Armenian Development Bank will also shortly be purchased by another quite active market player.  

ArmInfo. On October 19, INECOBANK presented a new product - InecoOne - a system to control cash online 24/7.

ArmInfo.

ArmInfo. The client base of Armenia's banking system by August 2016 numbered 2 353 411 physical and 77 735 legal entities.  According to the National Statistic Service of Armenia, 2 431 146 clients had 3 375 809 accounts in Armenia's banks, from which 3 220 682 are accounts of physical entities and 155 127 of legal entities.

ArmInfo. EBRD's Energoredit Programme held an Energy Efficiency Forum for Armenia's businesses under the umbrella of EU4Energy Initiative by the European Union Delegation to Armenia during the EU Energy Days, on September 28. 

ArmInfo. Banks of Armenia continue intensive capitalization, while experts anticipate new mergers till the end of 2016. According to the data of Financial Ranking of Armenian banks prepared by ArmInfo only 7 banks out of 19 have so far met the the minimal capital requirement, which according to the CBA's decision must not be less than 30 bln drams starting from 2017.

ArmInfo. Share of non-performing  loans (NPLs) in loan portfolio of half of Armenian banks has exceeded  upper ceiling of critical threshold-upper than 16% versus  international critical threshold of 10-15%. There are large creditors  to the country's economy among them. 

ArmInfo. Board of Central Bank of Armenia terminated license of BTA Bank (Armenia) related to its merger with Armeconombank. The press-service of the CBA has informed that the Board has made decision on August 24 registering delivery-acceptance certificate under the merger agreement and revised charter of Armeconombank. The decision of the Central Bank on termination of license of BTA Bank comes into force since the moment of its publication. 

ArmInfo. According to the forecast of the Central Bank of Armenia assets of Armenian banking system will increase by 28.7% in 2016-2018 with 8.8% average year-over-year growth. At the same time loan portfolio will increase by 45.5% over three years (13.3% average y-o-y growth). According to "Prospects of Development of Banking System in 2016-2018" official forecast by CBA the structure of assets in terms of shares of the main components will experience the following changes: share of cash funds will reduce from 3.8% to 2.9%, corresponding accounts in the Central Bank and the banks will fall to 13.3% from 18.4%, deposits/loans placed in banks and financial organizations will fall to 1.7% from 2.1%. At the same time loan portfolio in total assets will increase to 66.4% from 58.8%, investments in securities will grow to 6.5% from 3.6%, leasing and factoring will demonstrate non- significant growth from 0.8% to 1%. Fixed assets will remain almost unchanged falling to 2.8% from 3%.

ArmInfo. Armenian banks paid 19.4bln drams taxes to the state budget in the 1st half of 2016, which is 13.7% lower than for the same period of 2015. Direct taxes (including profits and incomes taxes) amounted more than 90% or 17.4bln drams of total with a 15% decline year-over-year. According to the State Revenue Committee, 13 of the 19 operating banks were among top 100 biggest taxpayers in Armenia in the 1st half of 2016.  Top 5 taxpayer-banks were Ameriabank, VTB Bank (Armenia), Ardshinbank, ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank and Armbusnessbank, with four of them were among top 5 taxpayer-banks a year ago too. In the 1st half of 2016, the top 5 taxpayer- banks paid 10.1bln drams to the state budget (down 16.3% y-o-y), of which 9.3bln drams were direct taxes (down 16.8% y-o-y).   

ArmInfo. By April 2016, the customer base of the Armenian banking system had 2,300,214 individuals and 76,951 legal entities. According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, as many as 2,377,165 customers had 4,344,714 accounts in Armenian banks, including 4,166,014 accounts of individuals and 178,700 accounts of legal entities.

ArmInfo. ARMPHONE is a new step towards improvement of Armenia's economy, Vahan Shakaryan, President and Executive Officer at Technology and Science Dynamics (TSD) Company, said during the presentation of the first Armenian smartphone - ARMPHONE - today, on June 6.  

ArmInfo. Increase of capital adequacy ratio in 2015 testifies to stability of Armenia's financial system. While presenting report on Armenia's financial stability at year end -2015 Head of Financial System Stability and Development Department of CBA Andranik Grigoryan explained that according to the results of 2015 growth of Armenian banks' capital adequacy ratio was registered at the background of growth of total capital of the system by 74 bln AMD.