YEREVAN, March 10, /ARKA/. The total capital of Armenian commercial banks in 2009 grew by 19.6% or 47.1 billion Drams standing at 286.8 billion Drams on December 31. According to provisional financial reports of the banks for Q4, 2009, the charted capital of banks (including emissive returns) grew last year by 22.4% to 189.8 billion Drams.

According to ARKA’s data, in terms of aggregate capital size the list of five leading banks was topped by ACBA Agricole Credit Bank with 35.4 billion Drams. It was followed by Ardshininvestbank-

27.3 billion Drams, Bank VTB Armenia- 25.3 billion Drams, Ameriabank- 21.7 billion Drams and HSBC Bank Armenia-17.1 billion Drams.

In terms of capital growth size in Q4 the leading bank was Areximbank-Gazprombank Group-

38.8%, ArmSwissbank’s capital grew by 38%, that of ACBA Credit Agricole Bank rose by 21.4%. Artsakhbank posted a 19.02% growth of its capital and VTB Bank Armenia a 11.99% growth.

Ameriabank had the largest chartered capital of 18.2 billion Drams, ACBA Credit Agricole Bank had

15.7 billion Drams, Ardshininvestbank-15.5 billion Drams. Then came Bank Anelik -14.3 billion Drams and Bank VTB Armenia -13.9 billion Drams.

In 2009 HSBC Bank Armenia’s authorized capital grew by 5.1 billion Drams or 210%, Bank Anelik posted a 9 billion Drams or 169.81%, growth, Armbusinessbank’s authorized capital grew by 8.45 billion Drams, or 169%, Artsakh Bank’s chartered capital grew by 3 billion Drams or 118.6% and Unibank posted a 3 billion Drams or 53.,57% growth. There are 22 commercial banks in Armenia with 382 branches. ($1 – 388.92 Drams).  -0-