Bagrat Asatryan, the ex-chairman of the RA Central Bank, said that the liquidity index of Armenia’s commercial banks exceeds twice the established standards.
“These are the funds, which should have contributed to the economy, but due to a state policy, they have remained unused,” Mr. Asatryan told a press conference in Yerevan.
According to him, in 2009 the RA Central Bank implemented significant intervention to keep the banking system away from stresses, announcing return to a floating rate on March 3. “Despite this, there is a range of problems in the country’s banking system, specifically Armenia’s banks have attracted much more funds, than they have placed in 2009, while some banks ended the year with losses. The attracted monetary funds in AMD totaled 46% as of the beginning of 2009, while by the end of it they decreased and made 25% in the entire volume of the funds attracted by commercial banks,” he noted.
Besides, the banker added that in 2009 the volume of capital investments in USD exceeded those in AMD. “As of the beginning of 2009, credit investments in USD made 39% in the entire volume of commercial banks’ credit portfolio, while by the end of the year they increased to 51%,” he said.
Speaking about the banking system hyper-liquidity, Mr. Asatryan stressed that Armenia’s government should have referred to the internal sources of funding (citizens, banks and public bonds), instead of taking credits from foreign sources and spending them ineffectively.
