UAE gross bank assets at Dh2.7T

abu dhabi — Gross assets at the UAE’s banks, including bankers’ acceptances, fell 0.3 per cent from Dh2.695 trillion at the end of December 2017 to Dh2.688 trillion at the end of January 2018, figures by the Central Bank of the UAE showed.

Gross credit in the banking system, increased by 0.5 per cent for the same period to Dh1.588 trillion from around Dh1.581 trillion in December.

Total bank deposits, however, decreased by Dh5.2 billion.

In the meantime, the central bank announced that the money supply aggregate M1 increased by 1.1 per cent, from Dh492.4 billion at the end of December 2017 to Dh498 billion at the end of January 2018. Money supply aggregate M2 increased by 0.1 per cent to Dh1,277.2 billion. while money supply aggregate M3 decreased by 0.4 per cent to Dh1,480.9 billion. Meanwhile, the central bank’s term deposits in 2017 totalled Dh636.2 billion, accounting for 46.1 per cent of the total deposits, which included Dh415.34 billion in local currency and an equivalent of Dh220.85 billion in foreign currency.

According to the central bank’s figures, term deposits in UAEbased banks increased by Dh26.4 billion during 2017, which reflects the growing demand for this category of deposits, comparatively with other types of saving vehicles.

The growth is driven by the successive hikes in interest rates, since December 2016 through the same month in 2017. — Wam