YEREVAN, May 26. /ARKA/. Unibank expects its profit to grow to 5 billion drams by 2020, Unibank Board Chairman Gagik Zakaryan told the annual general meeting of shareholders, saying also that at least half of it will be distributed as dividends. According to him, the move is supposed to raise significantly the investment attractiveness of the bank.

Under the bank’s four-year strategy, the volume of retail lending is to grow by 44%, and corporate lending by 37%. Thus, the bank will increase its share in the retail and business loans, respectively, by 13% and 10%.

According to a bank’s press release, sent to ARKA news agency, the general annual meeting of shareholders was held on May 25 to sum up last year’s achievements and present prospective plans. Gagik Zakaryan was quoted as saying that Unibank had done a great job in improving the quality and the range of services.

"We have succeeded in bringing the average daily number of issued loans to more than 1000, as a result the profit from retail business has doubled compared to previous year," Zakaryan said.

Unibank has also considerably improved the quality of assets. This in view, Moody's has upgraded the rating of the bank to B2 level; the forecast is "stable".

Over the reporting period, Unibank has increased its capital by 53% to 34.8 billion drams, meeting the normative demand of the Central Bank of Armenia.

Highly appreciating the investors' confidence in the bank, in 2016 the bank's Board decided to pay interim dividends to shareholders in the form of shares that are equivalent to 12.9% of the annual yield.

In 2016, the bank's assets amounted to 185.4 billion drams, an increase of 17.2% over the previous year; its liabilities grew by 11.2% to 50.5 billion drams, and its credit investments grew by 7.7% to 118. 6 billion drams. At the same time, the volume of deposits amounted to 114.8 billion drams, of which 81% were individual time deposits.

Currently Unibank is trusted by 325,000 customers and 200 shareholders. Today the bank has 47 branches, 52 promotion points and a representation in Russia.

Unibank was founded in October 2001. In 2002, the bank introduced the Unistream system. The main shareholder of the bank is Ripatonso Holding Limited. In 2015, the bank was reorganized into an open joint-stock company. ($ 1 - 482.01 drams). -0-