Bank deposit balances for the family sector in Egypt increased by 17% on an annual basis, during the last fiscal year 2022-2023, to represent 58.3% of total deposits.
According to data issued by the Egyptian Central Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, household sector deposits amounted to about 5.5 trillion pounds ($177.8 billion) in the fiscal year ending June 2023.
The fiscal year in Egypt begins in July of each year and ends at the end of June of the following year.
The family sector in Egypt relies on deposits to provide income that contributes to alleviating inflation, which rose to record levels during the year 2023 due to the decline in the value of the pound against the dollar and the difficulty of providing hard currency in the import-dependent country.
In January 2023, the National Bank of Egypt and the Bank of Egypt – the two largest government banks in Egypt – offered a new savings certificate with an interest rate of 25% for one year, and in April of the same year the two banks announced the issuance of new savings certificates for a period of 3 years.
According to Wednesday’s statement, the total balances of bank deposits in the last fiscal year amounted to about 9.5 trillion pounds, an increase of 28.5% on an annual basis.
Bank deposits in the private business sector rose by more than 51% to 1.4 trillion pounds, while public service sector deposits amounted to about 1.5 trillion pounds, an annual increase of 43.5%.
As for bank credit balances, they increased by 34.5% to 4.8 trillion pounds, and the credit granted to the private business sector increased by about 27% and the public business sector by about 54%.
The banking system’s liquidity surplus rose by about 23% to 4.6 trillion pounds due to the volume of deposits exceeding the volume of credit granted, according to the statement.