August 14 (SeeNews) - Serbia's central bank said the total value of household deposits in local currency has tripled in the period between August 2012 and July 2018, backed by increased confidence in country's financial system.
The total value of dinar-denominated household deposits rose to 54.4 billion dinars ($526 million/461 million euro) in July 2018 from 18 billion dinars in August 2012 despite the fall in interest rates, the NBS said in a savings report on Monday.
The foreign currency-denominated deposits of Serbian households also increased in the period under review, to 9.7 billion euro ($11.1 billion) from 7.9 billion euro, the central bank said.
The profitability of dinar-denominated deposits in the August 2012-July 2018 period was higher than the profitability of euro-denominated savings, chiefly due to the low inflation, higher interest rates, and tax exemption, the NBS added.
In 2012, the Serbian government and NBS adopted a strategy for the "dinarisation" of the country's economy. The strategy aims to achieve a satisfactory level of use of the dinar in the financial system, in order to improve the country’s financial stability, lessen the risk of exchange rate volatility and reinforce the effectiveness of monetary policy.
(1 euro = 118.024 dinars)