ARMENIAN BANKS SUFFER AT HANDS OF REAL ECONOMY
Ben Aris in Yerevan
Business New Europe
ian_banks_suffer_at_hands_of_real_economy
Aug 5 2009
Armenia has been hit by the crisis, but the blow was not to the nose,
rather it came under the belt: all the problems the banking sector
is suffering have been passed on to them by a slowdown in the real
economy.
"We were lucky not to be as integrated into the international capital
markets as Russia or Kazakhstan," says Tigran Davtyan, deputy executive
director of ConverseBank, who adds wryly that Armenia had been trying
to develop the local capital markets beyond the government securities
one and some corporate bonds, but "luckily, we failed."
The government was fairly optimistic the crisis would pass by Armenia
at the start of the year, predicting a relatively mild contraction
in GDP of 7-8%. So when the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) was forced
to devalue the dram by 22% at the start of March, followed by a 15%
fall in GDP at the end of the first quarter, the state went into
emergency mode.
The CBA slashed rates and pumped liquidity into the banking system in
the hopes of buoying economic activity. Interest rates have been cut
several times and the repurchase agreement (repo) deal on government
securities has been extended from one week to up to several months. Now
businessmen are a lot more pessimistic about the prospects for a fast
recovery. "Growth was fast in the last few years and we were growing
10-15% every year for about eight years, but the growth was already
starting to fall in 2008 before the worst of the crisis hit," says
Robert Petrosyan, head of strategy at Armeconombank (AEB). "Now we
are only expecting the strong growth to resume in 2011," expressing
an opinion shared by almost all the businessmen interviewed for
this article.
Still, the worst seems to have past. Economists are predicting that
the economy will only contract by 2% in the third quarter and may be
back in the black by the last quarter in quarter-on-quarter terms. "We
can already see the beneficial effects of these changes in the real
economy," says Davtyan. "The dram is already appreciating."
Sheltered from the storm
Thanks to the very conservative policies of Armenia’s central bank,
coupled with the sector’s relative isolation from the international
capital markets, the Armenian banking sector was sheltered from the
worst of the international financial storm.
Today, the level of non-performing loans is relatively low at 6.5%
of total loans, while the average capitalisation of banks is a very
high 25-30% of total assets. "Most of the NPLs are in the real estate
and construction sector, but it has also hit the small and medium-sized
enterprises. In June, the NPLs were 10-11% of the total loan portfolio,
but against this we have a very high [Capital Adequacy Ratio], which
provides a cushion," says ConverseBank. "NPLs could go as high as 20%
before we start to have any real problems in the bank sector."
The upshot is that the sector could bear very high bad debt levels
before any bank would run into a shortage of capital. At the same time,
the CBA reserves of $25bn-30bn is enough to bail out any bank that
gets into problems. "The [International Monetary Fund] and Russia
between them have given Armenia loans of over $1bn, which is a very
large sum for us, and so we are not anticipating any macroeconomic
problems either," says Petrosyan.
The growth of banks like AEB has slowed considerably, but
they are still in profit and see 2009 as a hiccup rather than a
disaster. Armenian banks find themselves in a frustrating position now:
they have the liquidity to make loans, but they can’t find anyone to
lend to. "This year is a write-off, but there is some optimism that
the economy will start growing next year. Still, there could be a ‘W’
style crisis this autumn, but if that happens, it will be mild. By
2011, everyone is pretty sure we will return to strong growth as we
saw before 2007, with some differences as the system has changed,"
says Petrosyan
Amongst the most painful changes was the popping of a bubble on the
real estate market and prices aren’t expected to return to their
previous levels any time soon. However, the damage was limited by
the CBA’s tight regulation and the almost complete lack of exposure
of the bank sector to the international capital markets. "We are
not afraid of capital flight, as the Armenian banking sector is a
closed system so there were no speculative capital inflows to leave
again. Foreign investment is not big here and what there is tends
to be direct investment," says Dr Konstantin Saroyan, member of the
board responsible for development at ArmSwissbank.
What capital flight there has been was internal, as residents switched
their deposits from dram-denominated to dollar- or euro-dominated ones,
which led to the devaluation. However, the switch of currencies has put
the banks in a difficult position as they rely heavily on deposits
to fund credits; with the volume of drams draining out of their
coffers, the banks were squeezed and so credit volumes fell, but not
catastrophically. "The volumes of credits were reduced but the banks
still have liquidity and they want to lend," says Agricol bank. "NPLs
are up a little in the sector, but not at our bank. The problems are
not really in the bank sector, but in the real economy. This is a
psychological crisis in Armenia more than anything else."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
