YEREVAN, May 19. /ARKA/. In the first quarter of 2017 Armenia-based commercial banks’ expenses on wages increased by 8% from the year before to 14.4 billion drams, making 53.7% of their total administrative and other operating expenses, according to ARKA news agency’s financial and economic bulletin "Banks of Armenia" (performance indicators for the first quarter of 2017).

The top five banks by size of expenses on wages were ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, VTB Bank (Armenia), Ameriabank, Ardshinbank and Conversbank.

ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK’s salary fund in the first quarter of 2017 amounted to 2 billion drams, which was by 14.5% more from the same indicator in 2016. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK was also the leader in terms of the number of employees – 1,328 people.

The salary fund of VTB Bank (Armenia) totaled 1.59 billion drams (an increase of 16.64%), Ameriabank’s salary fund stood at 1.47 billion drams (a 28% increase), that of Ardshinbank was worth 1.31 billion drams (an increase of 25.8%) and the salary fund of Conversebank stood at 985.8 million drams (an increase of 23.5%).

The total amount of administrative and other operating expenses of all 17 banks amounted to 26.8 billion drams (an increase of 2.56%). ($ 1 - 483.86 drams). -0-