Despite daily price increases and inflation, citizens’ savings in banks are growing, data from the Central Bank show. Thus, citizens have a total of EUR 2.65 billion in banks, which is 15% more than last year.
Data from the Central Bank show that a quarter of total deposits are owned by foreigners, and only citizens have a total of EUR 2.65 billion in bank accounts.
– Compared to the same comparative period in 2022, when they amounted to two billion 322.9 million EUR. This year, citizens’ deposits grew by EUR 331.4 million or 14.27%. Short-term deposits make up 90.11%, while long-term deposits make up 9.89% of total deposits in the system – Jovan Marković, from the Central Bank of Montenegro said.
The great confidence of citizens to keep money in banks is not accompanied by the growth of interest rates on savings.
And while the interest rates on loans rose compared to last year, they fell on savings. Thus, banks take an average of 6.47% interest when they give you money, while it is only 0.24% when you give them.
Such a ratio of interest rates in the Association of Banks is justified by the structure of deposits and they claim that earnings from savings are much higher than average returns.
– 82% of total deposits are demand deposits where you don’t have any interest rate or interest yield, this completely changes your picture, because on an annual level in Montenegro at Montenegrin banks you can get up to three percent of income on deposits – explains Bratislav Pejaković from the Association of Banks.
From the Central Bank, on the other hand, they justify expensive loans and cheap savings with geopolitical uncertainty.
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