Armenia – Total assets of Armenian banking system up 22% y-o-y as of 31 October; ACBA-Credit Agricole most popular bank in Armenia on Facebook

On 5 December the Central Bank of Armenia (Հայաստանի Կենտրոնական Բանկ) released monthly banking statistics for October 2012.  (At 31 October 1 EUR = 525.7 AMD.)  The statistics show that as of 31 October the total assets of the banking system stood at 2,345.8 bln AMD (€ 4.462 bln), up 0.4% from the month before and up 21.6% from a year earlier.  Retained earnings for the first ten months of 2012 stood at 34.154 bln AMD, 34.5% higher than the year-earlier figure.

As for deposits and loans, in the commercial banking sector total deposits as of 31 October stood at 1,175.5 bln AMD (€ 2.236 bln), up 0.9% from the previous month and up 21.0% from a year earlier.  The largest single factor in the increase of 21.0% (203.9 bln AMD) from a year earlier was an increase of 36.6% (115.9 bln AMD) in foreign-currency time deposits to residents.  Total loans on 31 October stood at 1,531.7 bln AMD (€ 2.914 bln), an increase of 0.4% over the previous month and 26.6% over a year earlier, with most of the increase over the year earlier date coming in the category of foreign-currency loans to private, resident non-financial companies (524.0 bln AMD → 721.5 bln AMD).

In other news, on 5 December the news agency ARKA published its ranking of the ten most popular banks in Armenia as of 30 November based on the number of “likes” on Facebook.  (In Armenia there are 21 commercial banks, of which 18 have official Facebook pages.)  The top bank was ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank (ԱԿԲԱ-ԿՐԵԴԻՏ ԱԳՐԻԿՈԼ ԲԱՆԿԸ), with 10,401 likes.  In a fairly close second place was Unibank (Յունիբանկը) with 9,868 likes.  In a distant third place was VTB Bank (Armenia) (ՎՏԲ Հայաստան Բանկի) with 4,964 likes.

Sources:

Balance sheet data: ՀՀ բանկային համակարգի հիմնական հաշվեկշռային ցուցանիշները

Deposits: Առևտրային բանկերի կողմից ներգրավված ավանդների ծավալներ (ամսական)

Loans: Առևտրային բանկերի կողմից տրամադրված վարկերի ծավալներ (ամսական)

Facebook rankings: Հայկական բանկերի թոփ տասնյակը Facebook-ում (2012-12-05 13:49)

Mark Pleas

Eastern Europe Banking & Deposits Consultant

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