IFC to Help Armenia’s Ardshininvestbank Improve Risk Management Practices

In Yerevan:         
Narine Hayrapetyan 
Phone: +37410 545242 
E-mail: NHayrapetyan@ifc.org 

ASHIB PR Coordinator: 
Astghik Martirosyan 
Phone: +37410 590519 
E-mail: pr@ashib.am 

In Tbilisi: 
Tamar Barbakadze 
Phone: +995 32 92 3523 
E-mail: TBarbakadze@ifc.org 

In Moscow: 
Nezhdana Bukova 
Phone: +7 495 411 7555 
E-mail: NBukova@ifc.org 




Yerevan, Armenia, October 20, 2009—IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, 
signed an advisory services agreement with Armenia’s Ardshininvestbank to help 
improve the bank’s risk management practices and increase lending to smaller 
businesses.  

The agreement is part of IFC’s broader regional crisis-response initiative 
focused on strengthening the banking sector to make it more sustainable. 

Ardshininvestbank is among the top three banks in Armenia and has an extensive 
branch network.  In light of the recent financial crisis, IFC is helping the 
bank enhance its capacity to deal with nonperforming loans, mitigate risks, and 
strengthen its lending to local entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises 
to stimulate economic development and job creation. 

“As a leading Armenian bank, Ardshininvestbank has attached great importance to 
risk assessment and management practices since its establishment,” said Karen 
Balasanyan, Deputy Chairman of Ardshininvestbank’s Management Board.  “We value 
very much the cooperation with IFC and are confident that our clients will 
notice the impact of advisory services rendered by IFC experts in the near 
future.”

Thomas Lubeck, IFC Regional Head of the Caucasus, said, “We are happy to help 
one of Armenia’s largest banks address the effects of the global financial 
crisis and increase the sustainability of its operations. This should create 
additional opportunities for economic growth in the country.” 

IFC, the largest multilateral financial institution investing in the private 
sector in emerging markets, has launched a broad and targeted set of 
initiatives to help private enterprises cope with the global financial and 
economic crisis. These initiatives aim to coordinate responses by individual 
institutions, catalyze action and investment from other stakeholders, and 
provide targeted support through IFC’s investment and advisory services to the 
sectors most affected. To learn more, visit www.ifc.org/financialcrisis. 

In addition to providing advisory and investment services to individual clients 
in Armenia, IFC also organizes seminars to train financial sector executives 
and managers in credit risk assessment and analysis to help ensure that 
portfolio risk is properly reflected on bank balance sheets. 

About IFC 
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, creates opportunity for people to escape 
poverty and improve their lives. We foster sustainable economic growth in 
developing countries by supporting private sector development, mobilizing 
private capital, and providing advisory and risk mitigation services to 
businesses and governments. Our new investments totaled $14.5 billion in fiscal 
2009, helping channel capital into developing countries during the financial 
crisis. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.

About Ardshininvestbank CJSC
Founded in 2003, Ardshininvestbank is one of the largest and most successful 
banks in Armenia, with  assets totaling about  $320 million as of the end of 
June 2009. The bank provides a wide range of financial products to its 
corporate and retail clients with a strategic focus on supporting Armenia’s 
small and medium enterprise sector. It has 55 branches throughout the country 
and an office in Paris. For more information, visit www.ashib.am.