YEREVAN, January 24. /ARKA/. ARKA News Agency has released the 2010 press rating of Armenian banks.

Ameriabank, Araratbank, VTB Bank (Armenia), Inecobank and Converse Bank are atop the news agency’s ranking.

Some 21 commercial bank are included in tables in 2010 against 22 a year earlier.

Internet media outlets enlarged the number of information sources a great deal and intensified the flow of bank-related news by 137% in 2010, compared with the previous year.

Total index rose to 15887.99, and leading banks’ index was 7938.1 by late December 2010 against 3611.1 one year ago.

The index of Ameriabank, who is topping ARKA News Agency’s ranking, outdid the other four leaders a great deal.

Its index was 3595.1 in 2010 against 1406.7 in 2009, while the second leader, Araratbank, ended 2010 with 1137.9 against 379.20 a year before.

The index of VTB Bank (Armenia) was 1108.6 against 443.79, Inecobank’s index was 1053.9 against 105.11 and Converse Bank’s was 1042.5 against 233.39.

In 2010, ARKA News Agency simplified the rating by removing all subheadings and reducing the number of headings to nine.

Remarkable is also that before the news agency used only newspapers – Golos Armenii, Respublika Armenia, Novoe Vremya, Delovoy Express, Hayastani Hanrapetutyun, Azg, Aravot, Haykakan Zhamanak, Hayots Ashkhar, Iravunk, Yerkir, 168 Zham, Capital and Sobesednik Armenii - for collecting information, while now it reviews also electronic media outlets Panarmenian, ARKA, Newsarmenia, Armbanks, Banks, Banker, Arminfo, Panorama and Lragir and news agencies’ Internet portals.

ARKA News Agency’s press rating is grounded on banking activity facts covered by the sources, not on financial or economic indicators.

As a result, the higher information about a bank, the more effective is its communicative policy.

ARKA News Agency doesn’t take into consideration advertising information.

More detailed information is available in the issue #04(04) of “Press Ratings of Banks” bulletin. -0-