YEREVAN, May 14. /ARKA/. Babken Tunyan, the head of an Armenian parliamentary committee on economic affairs, downplayed today fears that the banking secrecy will be used for purposes not prescribed by law.

Earlier, during a discussion on the execution of the 2019 budget, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that government assistance was denied to all those citizens who have bank savings or active transactions on their bank accounts.

In response, MPs from the Bright Armenia party accused the government of unauthorized disclosure of bank secrecy, which led to a war of words and a fight between the head of the faction Edmond Marukyan and MP Sasun Mikaelyan from the ruling My Step faction.

"There is no reason to doubt that the banking secrecy is not observed. The government used only the final data provided in general figures. There were no references to the names of citizens and the availability of funds on their bank accounts," said Tunyan

He explained that the bank could only provide information about the proportion of the beneficiaries of the anti-crisis program who have funds on their personal accounts.

At the same time, Tunyan did not specify what mechanism the government used to deny state support to the beneficiaries, if there was no disclosure of bank secrecy.

“My statement was used for political purposes and was not conveyed to the public correctly. Anyone who understands the banking system can confirm that we can only talk about the number of citizens who have savings or personal accounts, but not about identifying them,” concluded Tunyan.

On January 22, 2020, the National Assembly of Armenia approved amendments to the laws on “Criminal Procedure” and “On Bank Secrecy”, which removed restrictions on bank secrecy. In particular, if previously it was possible to disclose bank secrecy only with respect to suspects and accused, the amendments removed these restrictions.

On February 6, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said  the amendments to the laws on “Criminal Procedure” and “On Bank Secrecy” adopted by the National Assembly were  problematic in terms of compliance with the Constitution. He asked the Constitutional Court to determine whether they comply with the Constitution. -0--