Karachi
A withdrawal of Rs790 billion has been seen from the banking system during January 2021 owing to higher demand following acceleration in the economy on ease of coronavirus related restrictions, experts said.
The total deposits of the banking system fell to Rs17,086 billion by end of January 2021 as compared with record high of Rs17,876 billion by December 2020, according to statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Experts said that the rate of Covid-19 infections has decreased significantly over the last one month and it returned normalcy in business and commercial activities. The government also eased the restrictions that were imposed on a high number of cases in the second phase of the Covid-19 during December 2020.
The experts attributed the record high banking deposits in December 2020 to financial closing of banks, which made all efforts to show the maximum amount of deposits to improve their balance sheet. This was the reason for the large withdrawal from the banking system in the month of January 2021, they added.
However, the deposits by end of January 2021 at Rs17,086 billion are still 16.5 percent higher when compared with deposits of Rs14,673 billion in the same month of the last year.–TLTP
