YEREVAN, March 15, /ARKA/. Armenian financiers appear to be quite optimistic about their prospects in 2011, according to findings of a survey conducted by ARKA news agency among local banks, crediting organizations and insurance companies. The survey was conducted to find out business optimism index in this segment of the market It is calculated based on the difference between optimistic and pessimistic financiers.

ARKA news agency wishes to thank all participants of the survey and would like to remind that similar surveys will be conducted on a regular basis in order to keep the public informed about the situation, moods and expectations of major actors at Armenian financial market. We would like to draw attention to the fact that the survey’s accuracy degree depends directly on the number of respondents.

Banks

Virtually all surveyed banks believe they have a real possibility to increase their business turnover this year. In response to a question whether they expect their profits to rise this year only one bank’s answer was in negative.

One of the reasons behind the positive outlook and positive evaluation of the current situation is their 100% belief that they are going to have more clients this year than in 2010. They also plan to raise their personnel salaries. All banks were optimistic in this regard. In response to a question whether they expect a second wave of crisis 46% said it would not come, while 54% did not rule it out. (see Table 1)

Table 1.

According to the survey results, 88% of respondents believe that their business will progress this year, 10.5% could not answer and only 1.5% were pessimistic. Therefore, business optimism among banks was +86.5%. (see table 2).

Table 2.

Crediting organizations

Some 82% of surveyed crediting organizations said they expect their business turnover to grow this year and only 18% could not give an exact answer. Some 73% of respondents expect profits to rise while 27% were pessimistic about this prospect.

More than half – 55%- plan to raise their personnel salaries, 27 % will leave it unchanged and 18% could not answer this question. According to the findings, 91% believe they will have more clients in 2011 and only one organizations had difficulty in answering this question. Regarding a possible second wave of crisis 46% ruled it out, 18% believe it is inevitable and 36% could not make any relevant forecast. (see Table 3).

Table 3.

According to the survey findings, 69% of crediting organizations expect their business turnover to grow this year, 14.6% do not think so and 16.4% had difficulty in answering this question. . Therefore, business optimism index among Armenian crediting organization was +54.5%. (see table 4).

Table 4.

Insurance companies

As the results of the survey show insurance companies are the biggest optimists in Armenian financial market as 100% of the surveyed companies were sure their business turnover would grow in 2011. All of them plan to increase their personnel salaries win over new clients. Incidentally, the bulk of insurance companies- 67%- did not believe a second wave of cries was possible and 33% could not answerer this question. (see Table 5).

Table 5

According to the survey, 93,4% of insurance companies believe their businesses will grow this year and only 6.6% had difficulty in answering this question. There were no pessimists at all. Therefore, business optimism among Armenian insurance companies was +93/4.5%. (see table 6).

Table 6.

The survey embraced 62% of commercial banks, 34% of crediting organizations and 33% of insurance companies. There are 21 banks, 9 insurance companies and 32 crediting organizations in Armenia.