YEREVAN, January 15, /ARKA/. Armenian Araratbank plans to increase its credit portfolio this year to 25 billion Drams, its executive director, chairman of board, Ashot Osipyan, said at a news conference today.

He said the bank will define its crediting policy in the first quarter of the year and whether it will be conservative or aggressive will be depending, particularly, on the impact of the global economic crisis on Armenian economy.

In his words, this year is going to be very active, especially in terms of cooperation and attracting fresh resources from KfW, World Bank and EBRD.

He said Araratbank is considering also a possibility of implementing leasing and factoring operations together with EBRD and that the final decision will be made before May.

Araratbank, previously called Haykap Bank, was founded in 1991 and provides a full range of banking services to corporate, MSME and retail customers. The bank has established a reputation as a small but reliable and dynamically growing financial institution.

EBRD holds 25% in Araratbank. The rest is held by Barsegh Beglarian, head of the biggest petrol importing company Flash. Araratbank joined NASDAQ OMX Armenia January 30, 2009. It has 27 branches across the country. ($1- 377.61 Drams). -0-