YEREVAN, March 14. /ARKA/. Tigran Davtyan, executive director of Converse Bank, said Monday that this Armenian bank’s proceeds would reach AMD 2 billion by the end of this year.

“The bank’s profit amounted to AMD 1.4 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach AMD 2 billion this year,” he said.

Davtyan said that Converse Bank’s loan portfolio reached AMD 45 billion by late December 2010.

He said that the bank would try to enlarge its loan portfolio, but it would be quite difficult to do it under the current circumstances.

“In the end of 2010, we projected at least a 20-percent enlargement, but now we see that it will be not so easy to ensure the projected growth, since the central bank’s inflation-curbing policy won’t spur lending,” he said.

In his words, if current the same situation remains also in the future, five-to-ten-percent growth will be a good result, taking into account clients’ problems with solvency.

Davtyan said that non-performing loans in Converse Bank constitute 7-8% of the bank’s loan portfolio.

He said that so large share of bad loans in the bank’s portfolio is due to consequences of the 2009 crisis.

“Besides, we are trying to settle matters amicably, without suing borrowers,” he said.

The Converse Bank was established in 1993.

Advanced Global Investments (Argentina) holds 95% of the bank’s shares, and the remaining 5% belong to Armenian Apostolic Church.

The bank has 28 offices with 600 employees in 13 cities in Armenia. Two of these offices provide postal-banking services. ($1= AMD 367.85). --0--