ARMENIAN DEPOSITORS PREFER U.S. DOLLARS

news.am
May 5 2010
Armenia

As of this March end, the balance of physical persons’ deposits with
Armenian commercial banks totaled 313.8bn AMD – an annual increase
of 39.3%. The population’s savings in banks increased by 88.6bn AMD
or 28.2% of the total deposited amount by the end of March, 2010.

Of special interest is the structure of deposits in terms of currency.

Compared with same period last year, as of March end, the population’s
deposits in commercial banks in Armenian drams increased by 11.5bn AMD
(21.5%), and in foreign currency — by 77.1bn AMD (44.9%). Thus, the
population’s foreign currency deposits register both the outstripping
growth rate and multiple index of absolute growth compared to deposits
in national currency.

As a result, the domestic currency to total amount of deposits showed
a 3% decrease, making 20.7%. In contrast, the share of the population’s
foreign currency deposits boosted to 79.3%.

The U.S. dollar has shown 7.8% revaluation against the AMD since last
March, when the RA Government adopted a floating dram rate policy.

As for the total amount of the household deposits with commercial
banks, the ratio of the retail trade turnover to charged services,
that is as of the 2009 end the deposits totaled 291.6bn AMD – 15.8%
of the annual retail volume and charged services.