YEREVAN, August 5. /ARKA/. Armenia-based commercial banks earned a total of 40.7 billion drams in income in the first half of 2021, by 46.7 million or 0.11% more than in the same time span of 2020, the Union of Banks of Armenia said today.

It said also that in the first half of this year, the total capital of Armenian banks increased by about 24 billion drams, or 2.7%, reaching 915 billion drams as of June 30, which is 2.6 billion drams or 0.28% more than in the first quarter of 2021.

Total assets of all 17 banks increased by about 133 billion drams or 0.2%, amounting to 6.8 trillion drams at the end of June,

The banks' lending in January-June decreased by about 253 billion drams or 6%, and compared to the first quarter - by 189 billion drams or 4.6%, amounting to 3.9 trillion drams as of the end of June.

The drop is explained by writing off the "bad" loans during the covid-19 pandemic and the situation caused by last year's war in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

In the first half of this year, total liabilities of the banks increased by about 109 billion drams, or 1.9%, amounting to 5.8 trillion drams as of June 30, which is 111 billion drams or 1.9% more than in the first quarter of 2021.

During the reporting period, total deposits in the banks increased by about 61 billion drams (1.6%), and compared to the first quarter - by 68 billion drams or 1.8%. As of June 30 of this year, total deposits stood at 3.8 trillion drams.

There are 17 commercial banks in Armenia which run as many as 541 branches across the country, employing 12,700 personnel. As of April 2021, the number of bank clients stood at 3.3 million people (an increase of 229,405 people or by 7.7% in comparison with April 2020), of which 3.2 million were individuals and 107,300 thousand legal entities. ($1 - 492.3 drams) -0-