YEREVAN, October 1. / ARKA /. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK has awarded today the winners of a special contest that was designed to time with the 1st of September, the beginning of schooling year in Armenia. The gifts to the winners of the contest, as well as to some other schoolchildren selected by the bank were handed by the bank’s senior managers.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Arsen Petrosyan, said that the children were given "Samsung Tab" tables with audio recording of Hovhannes Tumanyan’s fairy tales.

"We mulled for quite a long time over what kind of gifts to give to children, and came to the conclusion that the gifts must electronic, because the current generation do imagine themselves without electronic devices. Since first graders only begin to learn the alphabet, they can use the tables to listen to Armenian folk tales and join our values and our culture," he said.

Petrosyan added that apart from the gifts, the bank has also opened deposit accounts for the children who will be able to manage them upon reaching legal age.

"This contest was designed to time with the 1st of September. It coincided also with the opening of our two new branches. We thought that the opening of our branches should be accompanied by a joyful event, and a better reason than September 1 was hard to find," Arsen Petrosyan said.

ACBA was established in 1996, within TACIS program of the European Union. Long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation between ACBA Bank and the leading French banking group Credit Agricole led Credit Agricole bank group to become the biggest shareholder of ACBA on September 15, 2006, by making a significant financial investment into the bank capital.

ACBA was restructured, becoming a closed joint stock company and it was renamed ACBA CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK. -0-