YEREVAN, October 14, /ARKA/. HSBC Bank Armenia CEO, Astrid Clifford, said today the bank will resume consumer and mortgage lending to legal entities and individuals in Armenia’s national currency, the Dram, within one month. Speaking to journalists she said a large number of banks were not lending actively last year due to AMD low liquidity and high credit risks.

“At the beginning of the year, we resumed lending to legal entities and mortgage lending for physical persons,’ she said.

According to the bank’s data, in the second quarter of 2010 its mortgage lending rose to 15.9 billion Drams, or 22.7 % of all credits extended to private sector. Astrid Clifford said the corporate demand for credits is lower than in the past, but added they were feeling it was rising.

HSBC Bank Armenia cjsc was the first international bank to open in Armenia in 1996. The bank is a joint venture between the HSBC Group, which has 70 percent ownership, and members of overseas Armenian businesses. The bank offers a wide range of products and services to individual as well as corporate customers, including personal financial services, commercial banking and treasury and capital markets services. It has 9 branches and offices in Yerevan, as well as 50 ATMs located throughout the city.

According to ARKA news agency’s data, on June 30 the bank’s total assets grew to 126.7 billion Drams, its liabilities stood at 107.9 billion Drams, the total capital was worth 18.8 billion Drams, credit investments reached 70.3 billion Drams and deposits were worth 101.9 billion Drams. In the first six month it earned 1.9 billion Drams in net profits. ($1-361.28 Drams) -0-