YEREVAN, November 12. / ARKA /. Armenia-based 21 commercial banks’ overall lending to private enterprises surged by 18.5 percent in the third quarter this year from the same period last year to a little over 1 trillion drams, according to ARKA news agency’s third quarter bulletin "Banks of Armenia."

The overall lending of the banks stood at more than 1.9 trillion drams, up from 1.7 trillion drams in the third quarter of 2013. In fact, private enterprises accounted for 56.6% of the total loan portfolio of the banks.

According to the bulletin, the leading bank by size of lending to private enterprises as of late September 2014 was Ameriabank -165.3 billion drams or 82.1 percent of its total lending. This bank accounted for 15 percent of the total lending to private enterprises.

Other leading banks in terms of lending to private enterprises were HSBC Bank Armenia (146.6 billion drams or 86.3 percent of its total lending), VTB Bank (Armenia) (117.9 billion drams or 52.7 percent of its total lending), Ardshininvestbank (109.7 billion drams or 66.7 percent of its total lending) and Armbusinessbank (106.2 billion drams or 71.2 percent of its total lending).

More specifically, Ameriabank lent 123.7 billion drams to large enterprises and 41.6 billion drams to small and medium enterprises, HSBC Bank Armenia lent 41.8 billion drams to large enterprises and 104.7 billion drams to small and medium enterprises.

VTB Bank (Armenia) provided 17.8 billion drams to large enterprises and about 100 billion drams to small and medium enterprises. ($ 1 - 405.3 drams). -0-