YEREVAN, March 17, /ARKA/. The amount of advertising and representation expenses of Armenian commercial banks last year dropped by 14.1% from a year before to almost 2.5 billion Drams. According to an ARKA analysis, based on the banks’ financial reports for Q4, 2009, a bank spent on average 111.6 million Drams last year (or 9.3 million Drams a month) on advertising and representation.

According to the analysis, ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank was the leader spending 486.4 million Drams (by 1.5 times more than in 2008).

Unibank was second spending on advertising and representation 286.6 million Drams, by 42.4% less than in 2008. Bank Anelik cut its expenses on this spending item by 32.7% to 272 million Drams. Ameriabank was fourth spending by 18% more than in 2008-161 million Drams. Armbusinessbank was fifth-161 million Drams (31.2% growth from 2008). These five banks accounted for almost 60 percent of all banks’ spending on advertising and representation in 2009. There are 22 commercial banks in Armenia with 382 branches. ($1- 394. 48 Drams). -0-