YEREVAN, August 18. / ARKA /. In the first half of 2015 Armenian commercial banks appear to have cut their credit investments by 4.5%, which stood at 2.069 trillion drams in late June, according to ARKA news agency’s financial and economic bulletin "Banks of Armenia" which shows the performance of Armenian banks for the second quarter of 2015.

Out of 21 commercial banks operating in the country 17 banks cut on their lending, the bulletin says. According to quarterly data, Ameriabank was the leading bank by size of credit investments, which stood at 267 billion, a decrease of 11% when compared to the beginning of the year.

It was followed by Ardshinbank with credit investments worth 236.9 billion drams, an increase of 7.78% compared with the beginning of the year. VTB Bank (Armenia) was third with 204.7 billion drams of credit investment, a drop of 12.55%.

Armbusinessbank’s credit investments during the reporting period increased by 1.2% to 198.5 billion drams making it the fourth largest bank in terms of credit investments and ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, whose credit investments grew by 2.9% to 189.8 billion drams came in fifth.

In the first half of 2015 the banks' total assets declined by 3.62% compared with the beginning of the year to 3. 267 trillion drams; their liabilities fell by 5.1% to 2.764.3 trillion drams and liabilities to clients fell by 1% to 1. 678.7 trillion drams.

Also their net profits in the first half of 2015 slashed by almost 55% from the year before to 8.130 billion drams. In the first half of 2014 they posted 17.8 billion drams in net profit.-0-