If the Donation Transaction is Suspicious and Fabricated, It Will Be Reported to the CBA Separately, Says Deputy Minister of Justice

In 2022, the number of donation transactions increased sharply in Armenia compared to the previous two years, raising concerns for the Armenian government. Deputy Minister of Justice Ara Mkrtchyan stated this during the meeting of the Permanent Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs of the National Assembly.

For this reason, the executive has decided to amend the law on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. According to the deputy minister, the authorized body, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), should be presented with reports and statistics on suspicious transactions to centralize the information in one place.

“We are creating a tool that will make the risks associated with money laundering more manageable through monitoring. For example, cases of property donations were not previously included in the overall statistics,” Mkrtchyan noted.

He provided information indicating that there were 8,674 donation transactions in 2020, 12,060 in 2021, and 15,765 in 2022—almost a doubling of numbers.

Members of the Permanent Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs did not rule out that the increase in the number of donations may also be influenced by the cashless transaction system that has been in place for nearly a year.

“The issue is not solely this; there are also contributing factors and problems. For instance, some banks have started charging certain fees for conducting transactions after the implementation of cashless transactions. This issue also needs to be regulated, and we will discuss this with the Central Bank,” said the head of the committee, Gevorg Papoyan.

Deputy Minister Mkrtchyan assured that this legislative change would not alter anything in the lives of law-abiding citizens. “If a particular donation transaction appears suspicious and fabricated, it will be presented separately to the CBA for discussion and examination,” he reiterated.

The project was accepted with a vote of 4 in favor and 1 abstention and was submitted for discussion at the National Assembly's plenary session. The abstention was from Arthur Khachatryan, a deputy from the 'Armenia' faction of the National Assembly.