Lending Institutions Look to Courts for Redress of Non-Payment During the past few months, banks and other lending institutions have increasingly petitioned the courts, seeking redress for non-payment of loans made to rural residents. They want the courts to oblige villagers to pay up. Yegisheh Martoyan, Secretary of the Nor Armavir Municipality Office, told Hetq that 95% of the village’s 2,150 residents have taken out loans and that there are forty outstanding court cases against them for non-payment. In the case of Nor Armavir, the loans were made by the ACBA Bank and the “Finka” credit agency. The same holds true for the village of Aragatzavan in Aragatzotn Marz. There are many legal suits now underway in Aragatzavan as well and residents are worried that their homes and lands will be seized in compensation. The number of rural communities facing similar credit problems is increasing daily. Rural borrowers just can’t make the interest payments. As a result, the banks petition the courts to have their property seized. If, prior to this spate of lawsuits, rural residents were hard pressed to describe what the function of the Compulsory Enforcement Service (CES) was, now they have firsthand knowledge. A day doesn’t go by without CES officials (basically bailiffs) showing up in this or that village and threatening them with the seizure of their property if they don’t pay what’s owed the bank or credit agency. According to official CES statistics, in the first three months of this year alone, the courts have sanctioned 3,790 property seizure suits filed by various lending institutions. More than 2.8 billion AMD has been seized as a result. ACBA Bank is responsible for 40% or 1,515 of the approved seizure cases and has seen 988.8 million AMD seized in its favor. Most of seizure cases have dealt with regional loans. Only 215 involve residents of Yerevan. We should point out that ACBA Credit-Agricole Bank is also a leader when it comes to charging high interests rates; reaching 24% annually. Inecobank comes in second with 578 seizure cases at 177 million AMD confiscated. In third place is ArdshininvestBank with 526 cases and 938 million AMD seized. Credit or lending agencies have also sought redress in the courts. These non-bank organizations have 642 seizure cases approved. 222 seizure cases have been approved in favor of the “Aregak Universal Credit Organization” and 254 for “Finka”. Only 158 of the total cases of the two organizations deal with Yerevan; the rest involve regional borrowers. The CES has told Hetq that during the first quarter of this year, 2,271 cases have been launched in the Marzes (Regions) of Armenia. The courts have only rejected six suits filed by the banks and thirty have been suspended. We went to ACBA Bank for some clarification on the matter. After one month of negotiations on the phone, bank management finally refused to talk to us. We got the same cold-shoulder treatment at “Finka”. At first, Yeva Grigoryan, the credit organization’s Marketing Director advised us not go poking our nose in matters that didn’t concern us. She later added that “Finka” wasn’t inclined to provide Hetq with any clarifications.