12:09,

YEREVAN, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS. Lending rates in Armenia based on the results of the first quarter of 2021 are higher than the forecasts made by the Central Bank, CBA President Martin Galstyan said at the session of the parliamentary standing committee on financial-credit and budgetary affairs, while presenting the Bank’s annual activity report.

“According to our expectations, the behavior of banks in 2021 must have been more conservative. We were expecting that the lending rates would be weaker. But the first quarter shows that the lending rates are higher than we expected”, he said.

However, he noted, that some terms have been toughened. There are groups of customers which are viewed as more risky by banks, in other words, banks may not provide them with loans, or may provide it in higher interest rates.

Talking about 2020, the CBA chief reminded that last year the incomes of the population and the businesses have certainly decreased, and some citizens, economic entities have faced problems in terms of servicing their loans.

“But in many cases the banks have revised their terms, by extending the loan contract term or lowering the interest rates. In other words, they have tried to solve those problems by showing an individual approach”, Martin Galstyan said, adding that the dialogue between the banks and their clients, which launched last year, continues this year as well.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan