YEREVAN, May 18. / ARKA /. In the first quarter of 2011 Bank VTB (Armenia) earned 1.3 billion drams in net profits, Valery Ovsyanikov, the chief executive officer of the Russian-owned bank, told a news conference today.

Ovsyanikov said by size of net profits earned in the first three months Bank VTB (Armenia) was rated third among all other commercial banks as its assets and the outstanding credit portfolio continued to rise.

‘We have managed to strengthen our foothold at the local banking market and improve many of our basic indicators, including our retail services,’ he said.

According to the bank’s data, its assets as of March 31 stood at 136.9 billion drams growing by 7.4% from December 2010, the outstanding credit portfolio grew by 14.8% to 99.4 billion drams, combined liabilities grew by 8.2% to 106.1 billion drams, the volume of deposits grew by 10.8% to 64.8 billion drams, the total capital increased by 5.2% to 30.8 billion drams and charter capital stayed at previous level of 13.8 billion drams.

Valery Ovsyanikov said also the bank has increased lending to individual clients by 12% as the number of its customers has grown by 40,000 over the last 5 years to 270,000. The bank also accounts for about 9% of all individual deposits. The number of card holders has risen five times, the number of ATMs by 7 times and that of POS terminals by six times.

He said although the main priority of the bank over the last two years has been boosting retail services together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bank VTB (Armenia) has been paying attention also to development of the corporate segment and medium-sized businesses. He said at the end of quarter one the bank accounted for 8.7% of lending to individuals, for 5.1% of attracted corporate deposits. The bank handles about 6 000 corporate clients including 150 largest Armenian companies and 30 companies with Russian capital.

Bank VTB (Armenia) is owned by Russian Bank VTB. It has 68 branches across Armenia, 24 in Yerevan and 44 outside it. It also operates 59 ATMs and 400 POS terminals.($1 – 373.74 drams). -0-