YEREVAN (Arka)—Ameriabank has attracted a total of $150 million from international lending organizations to finance Armenia’s small and medium-sized businesses, the bank’s CEO, Artak Hanesyan, said Wednesday at a conference in Yerevan.
He said the bank saw its trade financing increase by 43 percent in 12 months and by 17 percent this year, while the amount of factoring transactions surged by 124 percent in 12 months and their number grew by about 50 percent.
According to Hanesyan, the demand for financing factoring transactions, especially international factoring transactions is on the rise.
“Today, international factoring in Armenia has great growth prospects, contributed by the growth of exports,” said the banker.
Suren Kocharyan, the head of the bank’s trade finance department, said the bank’s trade finance instruments compared to traditional tools are more accessible, offering more flexible conditions for importers and exporters.
He predicted also a serious increase in export transactions next year because of Western sanctions against Russia. He said Ameriabank expects its trade financing to jump by 50 percent in 2015.
As of late April the bank had attracted a total of $273 million from international lending organizations lending the bulk to small and medium-sized businesses.
Ameriabank is a universal bank that provides investment, corporate and retail banking services in the form of a comprehensive package of banking solutions. It is the first investment bank in Armenia that has been providing a wide range of innovative banking services since 2007.
The bank’s assets as of July 1 amounted to roughly $840 million (an 8.8 percent growth from the beginning of the year), its liabilities stood at $740 million (up 9.48 percent), and capital at $98.6 million (up 3.9 percent). The bank earned $6.87 million in profit in the first half (the second largest among local commercial banks).