YEREVAN, September 9. /ARKA/. Armenian banks earned a total of 21.7 billion drams in net profits in the first half of this year, while their net profits for the whole year of 2010 totaled 33.8 billion drams, Ashot Osipyan, chairman of the Union of Armenian banks, said at a news conference on Friday.

“This year we’ll outdo our net profit result of 2010,” he said.

Armenian banks, he said, built up their general indicators for the first six months of this year.

Their aggregate assets grew 12.5% or by AMD 195.8 billion and credit investments 17.8% or by AMD 177.9 billion.

Osipyan said that lending to the economy was very intensive in the first six months of this year – it grew 23.4%. Lending to individuals grew as well.

He said that mortgage lending has increased by 8%, and consumer lending 12.5%.

Osipyan also said that liabilities grew 14% or by 173.7 billion.

“Very important is time deposits’ growth amounting to AMD 58.9 billion and individual deposits’ growth amounting to AMD 50 billion,” he said.

Armenian banks’ assets totaled AMD 1763.3 billion and credit investments AMD 1179.1 billion in late June.

Deposits in banks totaled AMD 858.1 billion. The banking system’s total capital amounted to AMD 352.5 billion (6.7% growth). ($1 = AMD 371.92).-0---