YEREVAN, February 5, /ARKA/. Armenian Araratbank has opened its first sales mini-center in downtown Yerevan, its executive director, board chairman Ashot Osipian, said today.

Speaking at a news conference he said opening of mini-centers is part of the bank’s strategy designed to expand its network of branches within the capital city Yerevan and beyond it.

‘Our goal is to make retail banking service more accessible to our customers. This will allow them to make use of them without having to visit our branches,’ he said. The citizens can visit mini-centers to make money transfers, pay their utility fees, run their bank accounts and so on.

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. By the end of 2009 the bank’s assets stood at 41.3 billion Drams, liabilities at 33.5 billion Drams, its aggregate capital was 7.8 billion Drams, charter capital- 6.1 billion Drams, credit investments—16.2 billion Drams, customer liabilities– 25.7 billion Drams. The bank earned 580 million Drams of net profits in 2009. Araratbank joined NASDAQ OMX Armenia January 30, 2009. It has 27 branches across the country. -0-