YEREVAN, August 5. /ARKA/. In the frist half of 2021 Armenia-based banks’ lending decreased by about 253 billion drams or 6% from the first half of 2020 and by 189 billion drams or 4.6% when compared to the first quarter of 2021 to 3.9 trillion drams at the end of June, the Union of Banks of Armenia said today.
The drop is explained by writing off the “bad” loans during the covid-19 pandemic and the situation caused by last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
Consumer loans in the reporting period declined by 6% to 571.247 billion drams (their share in the total lending portfolio was 25%), loans provided to industry declined by 15% to 555.193 billion drams (16%), mortgage loans grew by 15% to 551.452 billion drams (16%), trade loans dropped by 6% to 501.301 billion drams (14%), loans provided to the construction sector grew by 13% to 304.164 billion drams (9%), loans provided to the services sector fell by 3% to 297.671 billion drams (8%), loans given to the financial sector grew by 33% to 209.371 billion drams (6%), agricultural loans declined by 3% to 182.038 billion drams (5%), loans to transport and communications declined by 8% to 126.152 billion drams (4%), other types of loans declined by 40% to 139.687 billion drams (4%).
According to the Union of Banks of Armenia, 47% (1.866 trillion drams) of the credit portfolio of commercial banks were loans provided to the economy, 42% (1.684 trillion drams) were loans provided to individuals and 11% (415 billion drams) were loans provided to other financial organizations. Some 53% of the lending was in Armenian drams and the rest in foreign currency.
Overall, Armenia-based commercial banks earned a total of 40.7 billion drams in income in the first half of 2021, by 46.7 million or 0.11% more than in the same time span of 2020.
There are 17 commercial banks in Armenia which run as many as 541 branches across the country, employing 12,700 personnel. As of April 2021, the number of bank clients stood at 3.3 million people (an increase of 229,405 people or by 7.7% in comparison with April 2020), of which 3.2 million were individuals and 107,300 thousand legal entities. ($1 – 492.3 drams) -0-
