YEREVAN, November 14. /ARKA/. Armenian commercial banks’ investments in securities increased by 35% in the first 9 months of 2017, when compared to the same period of last year, amounting to 502 billion drams, according to Arka news agency’s financial and economic bulletin “Banks of Armenia” for the third quarter of 2017. Compared to the beginning of this year they grew by 9.5%.
The share of banks’ investments in securities accounted for 12.18% of their total assets. It should be noted that about 89.9% of the banks’ investments in securities – 451.7 billion drams were investments in government bonds.
The top five banks in terms of investments in securities were ArmSwissbank, Ameriabank, Anelik Bank, Araratbank and Inecobank, which accounted for 211.8 billion drams or 46.7% of all investments in securities.
ArmSwissbank investments in securities amounted to 51% of its total assets or 81.6 billion drams, which were 31.8% more than at the beginning of the year. ArmSwissbank, in addition to providing traditional banking services, provides also investment services and often acts as an underwriter or market maker.
Ameriabank’s investments totaled 63.6 billion drams (an increase of 30%), those of Anelik Bank – 30.1 billion drams (an increase of 60.9%), Araratbank’s investments stood at 29.89 billion drams (a decline of 14, 3%) and those of Inecobank grew by 28.2% to 29.84 billion drams.
The combined assets of 17 Armenia-based commercial banks as of the end of September 2017 amounted to 4 120.7 trillion drams (an increase of 0.76% from the beginning of the year). ($ 1 – 487.29 drams). -0-
