YEREVAN, June 20. /ARKA/. The investment portfolio of Armenian commercial banks in the 1st Q of 2012 rose by 7.3% to 153.8 billion drams from the beginning of the year, according to interim financial reports of the banks.

The reports show that investments for sales totaled in over 118.7 billion drams making up 77.2% of all investments.

Financial investments for commercial purposes totaled nearly 12.9 billion drams or 7.4% of all investments. However, investments of banks kept till maturity period amounted 14.2% of total volume of investments fetching up 21.9 billion drams within the reported period.

The share of investments in the authorized capital of controlled third persons was 0.2% or 324 million drams.

The leading bank in terms of investment portfolio size was HSBC Bank Armenia- 26.5 billion drams. It was followed by Armbusinessbank- 16.8 billion drams and ArmSwissbank- 18.8 billion drams.

As of March 32 of 2012 there are 21 commercial banks in Armenia. ($1 – 415.48 drams).—0--