YEREVAN, June 7. /ARKA/. The Yerevan-based Iranian Mellat Bank has attracted € 10 million after international sanctions on Iran have been lifted, the executive director of the bank Seyed Mousavi Holamreza said in an interview with Armenian daily ‘Zhamanak” (Time).

"In the first place the lifting of sanctions helped our bank to attract frozen Iranian funds to Armenia and to channel 10 million euros for replenishment of our capital," he said.

According to him, to date Mellat Bank’s capital is 23 billion drams, up from 19.3 billion drams in the first quarter of 2014.

Last year Armenia’s Central Bank decided to raise the minimum amount of commercial banks’ total capital to 30 billion drams (about US$64 million) from the current 5 billion drams, effective from January 1, 2017.  The measure is said to be aimed at encouraging mergers and consolidation of banks, which is expected to create a sound competitive environment and make banking services more available.

According to Mousavi, Mellat Bank tries to provide loans to those sectors of the economy, which are involved in the production or import and refrains from lending intermediaries. He said Armenia’s most successful sectors today are transport, tourism and restaurant business.

"We are trying to integrate fully into the banking system of Armenia, but there are transactions which we refrain from, despite their profitability. Basically, we do not provide loans with high interest rates, for example, at 24-30%," he said.

Mellat Bank has been operating in Armenia since 1996. Its clients are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises involved in trade between Armenia and Iran, as well as Iranian and Armenian tourists and students.

At the end of quarter one, 2016 the bank’s assets stood at 29.6 billion drams, a growth of 0.9% from the beginning of the year; the liabilities declined by 1.8% to 10.3 billion drams and its capital grew by 0.42% to 19.3 billion drams. Bank closed the first quarter of this year with a profit of 83.7 million drams. ($ 1 - 478.30 drams).-0-