ARKA Agency publishes quarterly bulletin on Armenian banks’ indicators by end of q1 2009

YEREVAN, May 22. /ARKA/. The ARKA News Agency has published its quarterly bulletin on Armenian banks’ performance indicators recorded by the end of the first quarter 2009. We do apologize for the delay occurred for some objective reasons.

The bulletin is based on banks’ financial reports published in the press, as well as on additional information provided by the banks.

According to the decree of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan of 26.12.2008 about amending the law on accounting, Armenian banks are obliged to compile and submit their financial reports in line with the international standards. The amendments came into effect on January 1 2009.

For the end of the first quarter of this year, banks published their reports as per the new requirements. Yet, cardinal differences were recorded in both the structure and calculation methods of the reporting by banks despite the uniformed International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The main problem faced by ARKA News Agency in preparing the bulletin was that different banks interpret the IFRS requirements differently. As a result, incomparability problems occur in the structure of such indicators as fixed assets and non-material assets, requirements to banks and other financial organizations, other assets, other liabilities, liabilities to clients, general administrative costs, other operational costs, net flow of funds from changed operational assets and liabilities.

The bulletin is prepared based on unified financial reports of banking organizations published in the press, as well as on additional information provided by banks.

The Activity Indicators of Banks of Armenia bulletin includes about 80 pages of tables and ten sections on the banking system – 1. General description of banks, 2.Assets, 3. Liabilities, 4. Asset and liability transactions of banks with non-residents 5. Capital, 6. Profit/Losses, 7. Money flow information 8. Liquidity and capitalization level 9. Risk norms and 10. Bank profitability and yield indicators.

The bulletin information gives an idea of the financial state of Armenia’s banks and an opportunity to make a comparative analysis of their performance.

The ARKA News Agency founded on May 1 1996 specializes in financial, economic and political information. ARKA started publishing the bulletin Credit organizations of Armenia in 1999 and the quarterly bulletin Activity Indicators of Banks of Armenia in May 2006. The bulletins are based on independent annual audits. As from July 2008 the Agency has been publishing Activity Indicators of Insurance Companies quarterly bulletin. N.V. –0--