March 5: Banks and Financial Institutions (BFIs) have taken standing deposit facility of almost Rs 400 billion in three weeks. As the credit flow of banks have not increased in proportion to the increase in deposit collection, BFIs have started using the standing deposit facility provided by Nepal Rastra Bank for liquidity management.
According to Nepal Rastra Bank, banks have taken standing deposit facility of Rs 421 billion as of Sunday. Out of that amount, Rs 166 billion is still with the central bank. On Sunday alone, banks deposited Rs 123.80 billion in Nepal Rastra Bank.
Under the standing deposit facility implemented by the central bank from February 14, banks can keep their excess liquidity in the central bank as deposits.
Banks get 3 percent interest rate when investing in the standing deposit facility. Banks are allowed to deposit excess liquidity twice a week on every Sunday and Wednesday. The average interbank interest rate has remained above 3 percent with the increase in the use of standing deposit facility.
According to the 'Interest Rate Corridor Procedure - 2076', there is an arrangement for the central bank to set the upper limit of bank rate and the lower limit of deposit collection rate and keep the interbank interest rate in between. For this, Nepal Rastra Bank can use various monetary instruments for liquidity flow and mopping excess liquidity.
The central bank introduced the standing deposit facility as per the announcement made in the monetary policy of the current fiscal year in order to make the interest rate corridor effective.
In the current fiscal year, bank deposits have increased by Rs 397 billion, while credit flow increased by Rs 208 billion only. As of Friday, banks have collected deposits of Rs 6168 billion and provided loans of Rs 5086 billion. On Friday, the average credit-deposit ratio (CD ratio) of banks was 80.04 percent. According to the provision that banks can provide loans by maintaining a CD ratio of up to 90 percent, they still have the capacity to provide loans of more than Rs 600 billion.
