The situation of time deposits is no longer relevant given that a lot of money is registered on current accounts as a result of the solution banks came up with in order to dodge interest taxes, states NBR governor Mugur Isarescu, reckoning that the statistical data included in NBR's bulletin "might not reflect reality".
However, the report on Q1 inflation speaks about "visible signs of a rally" in banking savings, after the sudden drop in the first half of last year.
"Contrary to our expectations, the slight change in population behaviour in favour of savings, noticed in Q4, 2006, could be further noticed in the first two months of 2007," reads the report.
The explanation for this? The rapid growth of incomes, particularly from salaries and foreign remittances.
In parallel, the NBR also notes "the slightly slower" annual real growth pace of loans granted by banks to individuals.
The statistical data resulted from the application of European Central Bank (ECB) methodology starting January 2007 also show a stronger increase of RON-denominated time deposits with a maturity of less than two years, at an average pace of 7.2% in the first two months of this year compared with Q4, 2006.
What the NBR governor said about the sums registered in current accounts is also reflected in the central bank's statistics in the column of RON-denominated "overnight deposits", which are registering a "much faster advance", according to the report on inflation.
The NBR specifies historical data were recalculated in line with BCE methodology, mentioning that the resulted series may be subsequently revised. As a matter of fact, the NBR's monthly bulletins are still published later than scheduled, considering that only the February bulletin was issued in mid-May. The solution of dodging the 16% tax on gains from interests related to time deposits is further encouraging people to put their money in current accounts bearing interests similar to the ones of time deposits. This trend gets stronger as customers realise that an interest for current account-type products even 2% lower than the interest of a three-month deposit brings a net bigger gain due to the fact that interest incomes are not subject to taxation in the first case.
NBR statistical data indicate the fact that in the first two months of this year, the average annual growth pace of "overnight" deposits related to current accounts functioning as deposits sped up to 110.7%, more than 46.2% above the pace registered in the period October-December 2006.
Despite RON growth trend, NBR data also point to a considerably stronger annual dynamics of the foreign currency-denominated deposits made by individuals.
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