YEREVAN, January 21. /ARKA/. Armenian Araratbank earned in 2011 some 2.2 billion drams in net profit, the bank’s CEO, Ashot Osipyan, said at a press conference on Friday. He said return on equity (ROE) was 19.6%, while return on assets (ROA) - 3%. Osipyan also said the bank saw last year a 51% growth in its outstanding loan portfolio with the greatest share of loans provided to small and medium businesses.

"The loan portfolio amounted to 38.6 billion drams, of which about 65% were provided to small and micro business. We will try to preserve this ratio in 2012 as well," he said.On other indicators, Osipyan said the assets soared by 37%, customer base increased by more than 50%, the number of plastic cards has grown by about 30 thousand and the deposits surged by 40%. He said the bank opened last year four new branches increasing their number to a total of 37 and plans to open another five in 2012.

Araratbank, previously called Haykap Bank, was founded in 1991 and provides a full range of banking services to corporate, MSME and retail customers. The bank has established a reputation as a small but reliable and dynamically growing financial institution. EBRD holds 25% in Araratbank. The rest is held by Barsegh Beglarian, head of the biggest petrol importing company Flash.

According to ARKA’s data, as of December 31, 2011 its assets totaled more than 87.7 billion drams, the obligations stood at about 75.5 billion drams, total capital stood at 12.3 billion drams, the share capital at 7.2 billion drams deposits at 54.9 billion drams ($1 - 387.67 AMD). -0-