YEREVAN, November 8. / ARKA /. Net profits of Armenian banks in the first nine months grew by 18.4% from a year earlier to about 24.5 billion drams, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) reported today. According to CBA, the banks’ profits before tax amounted to 31.4 billion drams, up from 26.1 billion drams in the first nine months of 2010.

The amount of interest income amounted to 127.2 billion drams, while interest expense to 58.4 billion drams. Non-interest incomes were said to amount to 34.8 billion drams, and non-interest expenses to 57.7 billion drams.

According to the Central Bank, net interest income of banks for the first nine months of this year amounted to more than 68.7 billion drams, up from 56 billion drams from a year before and the purely non-interest income less 22.8 billion drams against minus 21.6 billion drams for the 9 months of 2010.

As a result of 59.4 billion dram reserve payments for possible losses and the 44.9 billion drams refund, net payments totaled 14.5 billion drams against net payments of 8 3 billion drams for the nine months of 2010. The amount of accumulated retained earnings totaled 81.6 billion drams. There are 21 banks in Armenia operating 432 branches. ($1 - 380.47 AMD). -0-