Opening an account and a card in an Armenian bank

We called and visited the offices of all 18 Armenian banks, studied the recommendations ponaehali.am and compiled a complete guide on opening a bank account and issuing a card in January 2023 for relocators without residence permit.

Until 2022, a Russian in Armenia could open an account using an internal passport. In 2022, conditions in banks changed several times in 10 months. The current volume of documents is due to three reasons:

1. Banks oppose the transit of capital from Russian jurisdiction. They are trying to avoid a situation in which citizens of the Russian Federation, falling under sanctions, will withdraw money through an Armenian account
2. The fight against money laundering is getting tougher all over the world. You can read more about this in the article. "Anti Money Laundering (AML) Definition: Its History and How It Works"
3. Not all emigrants have a permanent income in the Republic. For the bank, this fact is an indicator of high risk.

Thus, banks respond to calls in two ways:

1. They require documents that confirm your long-term interests in Armenia: employment or lease agreements, social number, etc.
2. They increase the commission for opening an account for foreign citizens: from AMD 15,000 to AMD 100,000. The current dram to ruble exchange rate is available on the website rate.am

Our top is based on the conditions for opening accounts. We did not take into account the quality of mobile applications, ApplePay and GooglePay support, customer service.

In five banks, for one reason or another, a relocant without a residence permit will have problems with opening an account and issuing a card:

• HSBC: a citizen of the Russian Federation will not be able to open an account in this bank
• IDBank: the bank provides quality service, but you can open an account with it only with a residence permit
• Mellat Bank: the bank does not issue cards, only opens accounts
• VTB Armenia: subsidiary bank of sanctioned VTB
• fast bank: the bank appeared at the end of 2022, at the moment it does not offer cards for relocators without a residence permit

These banks will not participate in further comparisons.

Consider each stage of opening an account and issuing a card

You are preparing a package of documents. It is possible that the bank you have chosen requires a notarized translation of your passport or an extract from 2-NDFL

It will take time

• Minimum: 30 minutes
• Max: 1 day

You come to the bank, the operator examines your documents and accepts an application for opening

We recommend going to the bank early in the morning to avoid the queue.

It will take time

• Minimum: 10 minutes
• Max: 1 hour

In addition to Unibank, where you only need an internal passport to open an account, the security service will check your documents for authenticity and assess the risks

It will take time

• Minimum: 3 working days
• Maximum: 10 business days

You will be notified if your account is approved or denied. Cards are issued quickly, especially if you live in Yerevan.

It will take time

• Minimum: 3 working days
• Maximum: 7 business days

Thus, it will take you from 7 to 18 business days to open an account and issue a card.

The general principle is that the more evidence of your reliability and long-term stay in Armenia, the more loyal the bank is to your person.

Today's trend: banks do not prevent citizens of the Russian Federation from opening accounts if they have the minimum required package of documents.

The “ideal” package of documents with which you can open an account and issue a card in any bank in our table:

• Russian passport
• Notarized translation of a copy of a Russian passport
• Russian passport
• Social card (social card)
• Rental agreement for 6 or more months
• An agreement with an employer in the RA or a certificate of registration of an individual entrepreneur in the RA
• Statement from a Russian account for six months or a year
• Help 2-NDFL

Opening a bank account in Armenia costs from 15,000 to 100,000 drams. General pattern: the more documents are required from the applicant, the cheaper.

Card servicing will cost relatively inexpensively: from AMD 0 to AMD 10,000.

In banks where it is required to notarize the translation of a copy of a passport, from 8,000 AMD to 20,000 AMD for notary services must be added to the price of opening an account.