October 19 (SeeNews) - The deposit portfolio of commercial banks in Croatia rose by 20.3% on the year to 190.2 billion kuna ($37 billion/25.9 billion euro) at the end of August, Raiffeisenbank Austria Zagreb (RBA) said on Friday.
The deposit portfolio, which includes demand deposits in local currency and savings deposits and time deposits in foreign and domestic currency, increased by 3.6% month-on-month, which is the highest monthly rise since December 2001 when the German mark was replaced by euro currency, RBA said in a daily note.
The strong rise in deposits in August is an expected development, given that this is the month which is the peak of the holiday season with increased deposit inflow, RBA added.
RBA analysts attributed the monthly rise of the deposit portfolio to the growth of foreign currency deposits, which was the highest montly rsie in absolute terms since December 2001.
In August, foreign currency deposits in Croatian banks grew by 5.8 million kuna on the month to 101.7 billion kuna. They rose by 21.6% year-on-year.
Local currency deposits totalled 51.3 billion kuna at the end of August, up by 933 million kuna from a month earlier. Year-on-year, kuna deposits increased by 16.3%, the lowest annual growth rate since the first quarter of 2005.
Commercial banks' loan portfolio exceeded 200 billion kuna at the end of August, up 18.7% on the year.
There were 33 commercial banks operating in the country of 4.4 million people as of March 31, central bank data showed.
(1 euro = 7.3373 Croatian kuna)