Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction was examining the case of invalidation of the agreement signed in 2015 between previous “Anelik Bank” and “B.M.L. Arzni” company. The court has satisfied the lawsuit of IDBank (previously Anelik Bank). On that occasion, we present Mr. Mher Abrahamyan’s interview, the Chairman of the Management Board.

- Mr. Abrahamyan, the court of first instance has satisfied the lawsuit against “B.M.L. Arzni” company, which was declared bankrupt and invalidated the agreement in case of violating the terms of which the Bank would have to pay 22 million USD penalty. Could you please comment the decision of the court?

- Sure. We need to remind the readers that the Bank has a number of cases with “B.M.L. Arzni” company, which was declared bankrupt. Due to one of them, the decision of which was made on 12th of March, the Court of Civil appellation of RA satisfied our appellation and overturned the verdict of Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction to charge the Bank with the amount mentioned, as the lawsuit of “B.M.L. Arzni” Company was groundless according to the appellate court. However, as I have already mentioned, this company has filed a number of imaginary lawsuits against Bank, each of which refers to that agreement signed in 2015. We have also mentioned many times, that this agreement contains various problematic provisions that allow questioning the legal force of that agreement. For that reason, the Bank has appealed to the court in December 2018, to invalidate the agreement in order to end all the speculations. We are happy to state that the court has taken into account our justifications and invalidated the agreement mentioned.

- And what are the problematic provisions of the agreement?

- In order not to burden the reader with legal issues, I will only state that the agreement was not signed in compliance with the mandatory procedure and conditions established by law․ To put it more simply, it had no state registration, which is a mandatory requirement for all real estate transactions. The agreement restricted the Bank’s rights to manage the real estate transferred to him, so all the rights arising from that agreement were subject to state registration, and its non-implementation leads to the invalidation of the transaction.

- Good, and what are the future steps of the Bank?

- You know, we are already used to live in conditions of imaginary lawsuits. Moreover, it does not prevent us from accomplishing the Bank's strategic development goals, implementing our innovative programs, promoting our digital banking ideas. Now when the epidemic is raging in our country, it’s our duty to provide our customers with the widest range of remote service tools, preventing them from visiting the Bank and contacting with cash as much as possible.

Our customers have a wide range of tools for remote transactions on the joint platform of IDBank and Idram – IDBanking.am and Idram mobile app. They can become Bank customers with remote identification, take loans, order cards, open accounts and deposits, receive money through the fast transfer system, take advantage of about a dozen non-contact payment solutions with QR and NFC technologies in more than 2,500 points of sale, do shopping in more than 300 online shops, make instant payments for more than 250 services, etc. However, this is not our limit; we will offer new innovative products to our customers in order to increase the efficiency of remote service of our customers. At the same time, realizing the importance of comfortable customer service at our branches, we continue the process of modernization and expansion of our branches. Soon we will open another modern branch in response to the numerous requests and responses of our customers in Shengavit district. Let me remind you that we started the year by opening a flagman branch of IDBank in Northern Avenue. This branch has no analogues in the region and here a number of services is combined.

However, let’s not forget current situation caused by the pandemic: I would like to encourage our customers to use the remote services, wear masks when visiting the Bank (which can be provided by the Bank if necessary), disinfect hands at the entrance, keep social distance and wait for your turn at the appropriate points. IDBank, in its turn, implements all necessary measures to maintain the health of customers and employees, all areas are regularly disinfected and ventilated, employees are provided with all security measures. We will surely overcome this situation caused by the epidemic.

Be healthy!