Pakistan Banks’ deposits increase by 16percent in January 2021

February 9, 2021

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The total volume of Pakistan’s commercial bank deposits showed a solid growth of 16% year on year to Rs 17.1 trillion in January 2021.

On a monthly basis, commercial bank deposits fell 4% from the previous month.

The year-over-year increase in deposits can be attributed to an increase in remittances, which reached an unprecedented level of US$ 14.2 billion, representing an increase of 24.9% over the same period last year in the first half of fiscal 2021.

Meanwhile, new deposits, which were used to expand the investment portfolio, rose 37% year-on-year and declined 1% from the previous month, reaching Rs 11.42 trillion by January 2021.

Consequently, the ratio of investments to bank deposits remained at 67%, as in the previous month. As a comparison, in January 2020 it was 57%.

On the other hand, New loan disbursements remained subdued despite lower interest rates as it rose only 4% in the month of January-2021 as banks continued to fear general economic conditions due to COVID-19. This led to a drop in the ratio of advances to deposits to 50% in Jan-2021 as compared to 56% in January 2020.