YEREVAN, October 3. /ARKA/. Armenian banks will end this year with profits, Andranik Grigoryan, chief of the Armenian central bank’s financial system stability and development division, told journalists on Friday.

“At the moment, Armenian banks are operating with profits and we expect quite positive indicators by the end of the year,” he said.

Grigoryan said that progress has been seen in the country’s banking sector in 2016 – assets’ quality and the procedures regulated by the central bank have been improved. Besides, the banking sector’s liquidity remains high.

Twenty banks operated in Armenia in late June 2016.

ARKA News Agency has singled out Ameriabank, ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, HSBC Bank Armenia, Ardshinbank and VTB Bank (Armenia) in the first half of this year for the biggest capital.

The top five banks’ capital totaled AMD 262.9 billion and made up 44.7% of Armenian banks’ aggregate capital.

Their net profits amounted to AMD 12.3 billion in Jan-June 2016 against AMD 7.8 billion in the same period a year before (excluding ProCredit Bank), showing a 56.1% year-on-year growth.

Of the 20 banks in Armenia, 15 were profitable in the 1st H 2016, while the remaining five sustained the losses amounting to AMD 3.9 billion against 8.9 billion. In the 1st H 2015, seven banks lost AMD 8.9 billion. ($1 – AMD 474.46). ---0---