NBM says increase of required bank reserve by 3% - not tight measure
The decision of the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) to increase the required bank reserve rate to 11% from 8% now is not a severe measure, President of the NBM Dorin Dragutanu said.
During a press conference recently, he said the demand has been laid to commercial banks since January 2011. According to him, the free circulating cash in the banking system reaches about 4 billion lei, and about 3.6 billion lei of them are the NBM bank deposits under the 8% interest rate.
"In other words, the money can not be used as crediting resources so far. Once the required reserve level was increased to 11% from 8%, the NMB almost froze 500 million lei from attracted deposits in Moldovan leu and the equivalent of 500 million lei from attracted deposits in foreign currencies. So, we have blocked the cash amount of 500 million lei from the aggregate cash amount of 4 billion lei by this decision", Dragutanu said, adding banks have about 3 billion lei available at deposits after the required reserve rate was increased.
The NBM President said the required reserve level was 15% before the 2009 financial and economic crisis. He said that banks did not face any problems in their activities during the period.
"I do not see why the increase of minimum required reserve level to 11% should be a shock for banks, especially, if one takes into consideration the big liquidity amount in the banking system, just like I said before", he said.
According to the NBM President, the 3rd argument for the minimum required reserve increasing is the fact that "during the crisis period, its level was decreased considerably for helping commercial banks going through difficult crisis times".
"Now, the Moldovan economy goes slowly out the crisis, and it is necessary to put back reserves we took. If we continue cutting down required reserves, how one will provide cash to the banking system? For example, the ability of a central bank to provide the market liquidity is low in a country where the required reserve level is 2%. So, we must create own reserves for forthcoming situations, when one can need additional cash amount", Dragutanu said.
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