YEREVAN, October 30. /ARКА/. Seventeen Armenia-based commercial banks earned a total of 60.9 billion drams in profit in the first nine months of 2019, the chairman of the Union of Banks of Armenia Mher Abrahamyan told reporters on Wednesday.

According to him, the banks' profit in the third quarter increased by 0.8% or by 177.1 million drams reaching 22.5 billion drams.

“If we look at banks' profits over a 10-year period, we shall see it is quite high, but it should be considered in the context of comparison with their capital. In this context, the banks' profitability is on average 10%, which is significantly lower than in 2011-2012," said Abrahamyan.

According to him, the situation is similar in terms of return on assets (RoA), although the dynamics show a growth trend. 'Despite the generally accepted opinion that local banks' profitability is high, the banking system of Armenia works with maximum margin,' he said.

He said the margin is getting narrower due to high competition in the banking system, the need to improve the quality of services, innovations and investment.

According to him, the drop in margin affects the profitability of banks, which is undesirable, since it is a business and from the point of view of an investor it should be profitable.

"The 60 billion drams earned as profit in 9 months seem to be much, but compared to the size of capital and assets, we cannot say that the banking system is attractive from an investment point of view," Abrahamyan said.

The banker noted that investments in deposits are more profitable than investments in the banking business. ($1 - 476.15 dram). --0—