OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2012. ARARATBANK attracted new funds from the European Fund for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to foster micro, small and medium enterprises as well as agricultural sector in Armenia, reported the press-centre of ARARATBANK.  

An agreement of USD 7 million has been signed between Ashot Osipyan, CEO of ARARATBANK OJSC, and Valeriu Razlog, Head of EBRD Yerevan Office. Within the framework of the project, up to USD 1 million will be allocated for financing of agricultural business projects. Another peculiarity of this loan project is the attraction of funds in local currency.

Due to new loan funds ARARATBANK will disburse loans of maximum USD 300 thousand and with a maturity of five years to business entities engaged in construction, production, agriculture, trade and service.

It should be mentioned that the Bank is one of the leaders in the Armenian banking market in terms of SME lending volume. By semi-annual data of the current year, lending to this sector has increased by 21 percent as compared to the beginning of the year and stood at over 12 billion 97 million Armenian drams.

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The following financial indicators have been registered in the first half-year of 2012. At the end of June the Bank’s assets grew by about 21 billion drams or 25% as compared to the figure at the beginning of the year and stood at AMD 109,4 billion. Within the same period loan investment growth was 26,3% or more than AMD 10 billion and 11,8% or AMD 1,6 billion for term deposits of individuals.

Within the first six months of 2012 the number of plastic cards grew by about 9 thousand and stood at about 94 thousand. By semi-annual indicators the number of customers reached 155 thousand with an increase of 10% as compared to the number at the beginning of the year. It should be mentioned as well that by the results for the first half-year of 2012, net profit of ARARATBANK stood at AMD 1 billion 859 million.

Within the reporting period mentioned above return on equity (ROE) stood at 28,3% and return on assets (ROA) – 3%.