Yerevan, October 11 /Mediamax/. The annual 4th “Money Transfers. Retail Banking Services” international interbank conference started its work in Yerevan today.

Mediamax reports that the Chairman of the Central Bank (CB) of Armenia Tigran Sarkisian noted in his welcoming speech that the given conference is remarkable by the fact that “it gives opportunity to synchronize the watches of the financial market participants and the banking services consumers”.

According to Sarkisian, the money transfers, both through a banking system and out of it, have become one of the most profitable operations. So, as of October 1 of 2007, the total profit of all the Armenian banks only in the commission payments made 8.5bln drams, which is almost for 2bln more, as compared to the same period of 2006. In the course of 9 months of 2007, the volume of money transfers made about $1.2bln, which has already exceeded the yearly indices of 2006.

According to the assessment of the CB Chairman, lately, quality progress has also taken place in the sphere of money transfers, which led to the appearance of new participants and the formation of a healthy competition atmosphere.

Tigran Sarkisian singled out a number of new quality factors, which have been present in the sphere of money transfers recently:

- The opportunity to deliver the sum of money transfers to the final receiver in a currency, different from the one sent;

- The opportunity to deliver the sum of the transfer directly on the banking account;

- The opportunity to realizing a money transfer by means of payment self-service terminals;

- The extension of the geography of money transfer services;

- Abrupt increase of competition between the participants, including at the expense of non-bank organizations.

As Tigran Sarkisian noted, the main guidelines for the Armenian CB will be the stability and the reliability of the payment market participants. The CB plans to reconsider and improve some legislative provisions in the payment-account sphere, including, in the sphere of activities of non-bank organizations.

During the “Money Transfers. Retail Banking Services” conference, issues, related to the improvement of technical platforms, innovational system of currency integration, extension and improvement of the services spectrum quality for the users of money transfer systems will be discussed, as well as the issues, concerning the legalization and the struggle against money laundering, etc.

The President of the Association of Russian Banks Garegin Tosunian, President of the Moscow International Currency Association Aleksey Mamontov, representatives of banks, financial organization and NGO from Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Moldova and Baltic states are participating in the work of the conference.

The conference will last till October 13.