The ManicaPost
THE level of savings within the local financial services sector remains significantly low to support lending, although there was a slight rise in medium term deposits during the last full week of January.
The local banking sector has been struggling to lend to critical sectors of the economy due to the lack of a savings culture in the country.
Economists opine that banks simply cannot function without deposits from savers in the economy.
According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s latest weekly economic review savings deposits were unchanged from the prior week.
“Savings deposits remained unchanged at 3, 01 percent, during the week ending 20th January 2017,” said the RBZ.
“Deposits rates for deposits of 1 month tenor declined by 0,03 percent to 5, 33 percent, while deposit rates for deposits of 3 months tenor increased by 0,03 percent, to close the week under review at 5,75 percent.”
Meanwhile, the RBZ’s report for the week under review saw a decline in electronic money transactions.
This was largely due to a decline in mobile transactions.
“The total value of transactions processed through the National Payments System (NPS) stood at $1 119, 01 million, during the week ending January 20, 2017.
“This was a 4 percent decline from the $1 162, 97 million recorded in the prior week.
“The fall in the total value of NPS transactions was largely explained by the decrease in the value of mobile transactions,” said the RBZ.
In value terms, the electronic transactions were distributed as follows: Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) 82,68 percent; Point-Of-Sale (POS) 8,94 percent; mobile 6,84 percent; Automated Teller Machines (ATM) 1,35 percent and cheque 0,19 percent.
In terms of volumes, NPS transactions declined by 16 percent to 7 760 220, during the week under analysis, from 9 249 468 recorded in the previous week. – BH24.
