{"id":272880,"date":"2026-05-12T13:25:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/?p=272880"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:25:28","slug":"union-of-banks-smes-account-for-approximately-37-of-armenias-economy-and-receive-60-of-business-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2026\/05\/12\/272880\/","title":{"rendered":"Union of Banks: SMEs account for approximately 37% of Armenia’s economy and receive 60% of business loans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

YEREVAN, May 12. \/ARKA\/. <\/strong>Small and medium businesses account for approximately 37% of Armenia’s economy and receive approximately 60% of business loans, stated Daniel Azatyan, Chairman of the Union of Banks of Armenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are approximately 115,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises operating in Armenia, which account for slightly more than a third of the country’s tax revenues. At the same time, only approximately 16,000 enterprises have loans, with a total of approximately 56,000 loans. The total volume of loans provided to SMEs is approximately 2 trillion drams, equivalent to approximately 60% of all loans issued to businesses,” Azatyan noted, speaking at the “SME Sector: Impact and Development Challenges” conference in Yerevan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He emphasized that these indicators demonstrate significant potential for further expansion of business lending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For creditworthy companies, access to financing is quite high today. But we must talk not only about accessibility but also about responsible and high-quality financing,” said the head of the Union of Banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azatyan recalled that a new regulation of the Central Bank of Armenia, aimed at reducing credit risks for reliable borrowers, came into effect in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to him, this has allowed commercial banks to reduce interest rates on dram-denominated loans for small and medium-sized businesses by 1-1.5 percentage points since May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“According to our data, this decision affected approximately 20,000 loans with a total loan balance of approximately 200 billion drams,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azatyan cited administrative difficulties, frequently changing requirements, and a lack of awareness of existing loan programs as the main challenges facing SMEs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The head of the Union of Banks also emphasized the importance of cooperation between the state, the financial system, and international partners in developing the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small and medium businesses account for approximately 37% of Armenia’s economy and receive approximately 60% of business loans, stated Daniel Azatyan, Chairman of the Union of Banks of Armenia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":267807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[12315,9214,12139,9216],"tags":[15286,13991],"class_list":{"0":"post-272880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-announces","8":"category-banks-en-en","9":"category-economy-en","10":"category-news","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-union-of-banks"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272881,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272880\/revisions\/272881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}