Baku, Azerbaijan, May 29
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
Positive dynamics are expected regarding the volume of savings of the population of Kazakhstan with the growth of real incomes of citizens, recovery of economic growth and measures taken to maintain financial stability, Head of the Office for the Protection of Rights of Consumers of Financial Services and External Communications of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Alexander Terentyev told Trend in an interview.
Earlier, Trend reported that less than half of second-tier banks in Kazakhstan benefit from retail deposits, as interest in them falls among the population.
“In our opinion, it is not quite right to talk about a decline in interest in retail deposits, since the tenge deposits of the population show growth, and a decrease is observed only in the segment of foreign currency deposits,” Terentyev said.
Thus, for the first quarter of 2019, household savings in tenge increased by 161 billion tenge, while foreign currency deposits decreased by 382 billion tenge.
“Most of the decline is on large foreign currency deposits. We associate this trend with a low return on foreign currency deposits compared to the return on alternative instruments,” he noted.
In order to bring the Kazakhstan Deposit Insurance Fund’s marginal rate on foreign currency deposits to market rates and prevent the outflow of foreign currency deposits from the system, from June 1, 2019, the marginal rate on long-term savings and term deposits in foreign currency will be increased to 2 percent.
In addition, according to Terentyev, the reduction in the volume of the deposit portfolio of individuals is due to the fact that the deposit portfolios of individuals of Qazaq Banki JSC, Eximbank Kazakhstan JSC and Bank of Astana JSC in the amount of 58.7 billion tenge were no longer being recorded in the deposit database of the banking system, due to their forced liquidation.
Despite this, the share of deposits of individuals (51.3 percent) in the entire deposit base of banks increased (for comparison, 49.1 percent last year and 45.6 percent a year earlier).
Responding to a question about the number of banks in Kazakhstan offering savings deposits, Terentyev noted that within six months of the existence of savings deposits, including with the right of replenishment, 15 out of 26 banks offer them.
“We believe that the need to introduce a savings deposit, like any other deposit product, is determined by the bank’s internal deposit policy and development strategy, based on the needs of each bank’s customers.”
With the growth of real incomes of citizens, recovery of economic growth and measures taken to maintain financial stability, positive dynamics in the volume of savings are expected, the head of the office stressed.
He also added that there will be a further development of term deposits in the deposit market, including savings, further increase of the efficiency of competition on it, which will help ensure the economy with medium-term and long-term funding at competitive interest rates.
---
Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri
