YEREVAN, May 19. /ARKA/. In the first quarter of 2017 Armenia-based commercial banks increased their reserves for possible credit losses by 18.9 billion drams or 22.7% from the year before to 102.7 billion drams, according to ARKA news agency’s financial and economic bulletin "Banks of Armenia" (performance indicators for the first quarter of 2017).

Compared to the beginning of 2017 the reserves increased by 5 billion drams or 5.21%.

The top five banks by size of reserves for possible credit losses were VTB Bank (Armenia), ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, HSBC Bank Armenia, Ameriabank and Ardshinbank.

The reserves of the VTB Bank (Armenia) at the end of March amounted to 23 billion drams, an increase of 77.8% over the year; however, they were 5.6% down from the beginning of the year.

ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK’s reserves amounted to 17.5 billion drams (an increase of 94.2% and 3.81% respectively), the reserves of HSBC Bank Armenia stood at 10.7 billion drams (an increase of 68.63% and a decline of 6.81% respectively), Ameriabank’s reserves were worth 9.6 billion drams (an increase of 68.8% and 11.5% respectively) and Ardshinbank’s reserves grew to 6.9 billion drams (an increase of 1.4% and 21.37% respectively).

In the first quarter of 2017, the share of reserves in the credit portfolio of the banking sector increased to 4%. The highest share of reserves in the loan portfolio had Byblos Bank Armenia (17.65%), VTB Bank (Armenia) (16.98%), ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK (9.89%), HSBC Bank Armenia (8.94%) and Mellat Bank (6.61%). ($ 1 - 483.86 drams). -0-