The ban on exporting Armenian agricultural products to Russia poses several risks, including the possibility that thousands of people may soon be unable to repay their loans due to an inability to sell their products.
During a press conference, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, Hovhannes Khachatryan, stated that this situation is unlikely to have a serious impact on the stability of the banking sector, but it may affect people's social conditions:
“The banks are capitalized, and from the perspective of financial sector stability, we do not see risks. We see more social risks because the volumes are not that large; let’s be honest, that one or two percent we mention in GDP is not a volume issue. The matter is that tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and agricultural farms are involved there,” Khachatryan noted, adding that banks have already made changes to the rules for affected sectors: they have established grace periods and the possibility of restructuring loans.
Agricultural loans currently amount to 400 billion drams, with about 8 percent already having applied for restructuring repayments:
“We have current statistics showing that over 30 billion drams have already been restructured, with some still not having applied. We are demonstrating our attitude by incorporating these force majeure situations into regulations, ensuring that bank restructurings not related to specific problems of economic entities, but rather affecting the entire sector due to export restrictions, do not impact the credit histories of these companies and classifications, allowing banks to operate freely in this regard.
However, how much will be restructured as a result, and how much the mentioned 30 billion plus amount will become, I cannot say; it depends on the scenarios:
In a bad scenario, yes, the portfolio needing restructuring could increase several times,” said the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank.
In the first six months of 2026, agricultural loans increased by 23 percent compared to the previous year, following consumer loans:
These statistics were also presented at another press conference by the president of the Union of Banks, Daniel Azatyan, who noted that such growth in the agricultural sector has never been seen annually, but it is difficult to assess what will happen in the future; nonetheless, the banking system is calculating risks:
“If we talk at the macro level, all possible risks and scenarios are constantly calculated by banks, but life has taught us that not all risks and scenarios can be anticipated:
Therefore, additional buffers and unforeseen risks are taken into account in banks, and in this regard, there are buffers and cushions for both capital and other instruments. We can say today that our banking system is so capitalized and liquid that we can withstand any risks,” noted Daniel Azatyan, president of the Union of Banks.
