Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 25
By Elena Kosolapova – Trend:
Dollarization of deposits in Kazakhstan’s second-tier banks decreased from 69.9 percent in January 2016 to 54.6 percent as of the end of 2016, Kazakh National bank said.
Dollarization of legal entities’ deposits decreased from 62 percent to 49 percent, dollarization of individuals’ deposits decreased from 80 percent to 62 percent in the reporting period.
The volume of deposits in tenge increased by 66.4 percent or by 3.3 trillion tenge (328.49 tenge = $1) in 2016, while deposits in foreign currency decreased by 9.9 percent or 1.1 trillion tenge.
“The measures aimed at increasing the attractiveness of savings in the national currency, as well as the stabilization of the situation in the domestic foreign exchange market contributed to the growth in tenge deposits volume,” the National Bank said.
According to the bank, the most effective measure for the de-dollarization was the change in the maximum level of interest rates on deposits. The National Bank increased the maximum recommended rate for individual deposits in tenge from 10 percent to 14 percent and reduced the maximum recommended rate for foreign currency deposits from 3 percent to 2 percent in 2016.
Moreover, tenge strengthened by 2 percent against the US dollar and by 5.1 percent against euro in 2016. Due to two this facts the economic viability of savings in foreign currency decreased.
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