YEREVAN, June 27. /ARKA/. Dollarization of banking deposits in Armenia climbed by 0.5 p.p. to 68.8%, and of credits- by 0.7 p.p. to 63.4%, Orakarg newspaper (Agenda) reports on Wednesday.
The source explains how dram’s devaluation influenced the structure of credit and deposit portfolio of the banking system.

Particularly, the volume of deposits in the banking system increased by 11.51 billion drams (1.1% growth) to 1044 billion drams in May from April. And the volume of deposits in drams within the same period dropped by 0.6%, whereas in dollars- rose by 1.9% to 13.4 billion drams.

The volume of deposits attracted from non-residents has fell significantly, by 4.1% ( by 15% from the beginning of the year) to 221.5 billion drams as of May 31.

According to the source, majority of non-residents are keeping their deposits in dollars and sharp decrease of their volume most likely means they have taken their means out of the country.

The structure of credit portfolio was, of course, impacted by such increase in the volume of dollar deposits. As a result, the total volume of credit portfolio jumped by 50.8 billion to 1440 billion drams in May from April. And the share of dollar credits in the total credit portfolio of the Armenian banks advanced by 0.7 p.p. to 63,4%.

Such dynamics proves the banks’ unwillingness to convert dollars into drams and the fact that they have allocated credits in dollars thus delivering all the risks on the shoulders of borrowers. --0--