YEREVAN, August 17. /ARKA/. In the second quarter of 2016 Armenia’s commercial banks increased their reserves for possible losses on loans by 9.7 billion drams or 11.7% to 93.5 billion drams. According to ARKA news agency’s bulletin "Banks of Armenia", these reserves grew by 3.89% from the beginning of the year.

The leading five banks by size of reserves for possible losses on loans were Areximbank-Gazprombank Group, VTB Bank (Armenia), ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, Ameriabank and HSBC Bank Armenia.

Areximbank-Gazprombank Group’s reserves stood at the end of June at 18.7 billion drams, having increased 2.5 times from the first quarter, however, when compared to the beginning of the year they were down 5.6%.

VTB Bank (Armenia) reserves grew by 5.56% from the beginning of the year and 7% from the first quarter to 13.9 billion drams. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK’s reserves stood at 7.7 billion drams, a decline of 14.7% from the first quarter and an increase of 14.23% from the beginning of the year.

Ameriabank’s reserves grew by 20.4% from the first quarter and 26.8% from the beginning of the year to 6.8 billion drams and HSBC Bank Armenia’s reserves declined by 0.16% from the first quarter and surged by 19.65% from the beginning of the year to 6.3 billion drams.

In the second quarter the share of these reserves in the loan portfolios of the banks grew by 4.2%. Areximbank-Gazprombank Group had the highest share of reserves in the loan portfolio (47%). It was followed by Byblos Bank Armenia (22%), BTA Bank (11.6%), VTB Bank (Armenia) (8.3%) and the Armenian Development Bank (5.7%).

Also the combined credit portfolio of all 20 Armenian banks at the end of June 2016 stood at 2.194.1 trillion drams, having increased by 3.4% from the beginning of the year. -0-