Economists welcome moves to boost Saudi bank liquidity

Any move to increase liquidity in the Saudi banking sector should be seen as positive, top bankers and economists told Arab News Monday.
Their comments came as a new report revealed that total Saudi bank deposits rose in June following two consecutive monthly declines. 
Private sector deposits saw a large monthly addition of SR21.8 billion, while government and other deposits fell, stated the Jadwa Investment’s report. 
“The loan-to-deposit ratio rose to 90 percent, which leads us to believe that Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) will further ease the limit,” said Fahad Alturki, chief economist at Jadwa Investment. 
In a related development, Bloomberg reported that SAMA offered banks short-term loans of about SR15 billion ($4 billion) in late June to help ease liquidity constraints.
The loans were offered at a discounted rate, two of the people told the news agency. SAMA offered individual banks as much as SR1.5 billion, based on their balance sheets, four people said. The loans are for up to one year.
Commenting on SAMA’s reported move, John Sfakianakis, director of economic research at the Gulf Research Center, told Arab News: “It’s a very positive action that should help enhance liquidity over time as long as such moves are repeated and there are no deposit shocks in a low growth environment.”
He added: “Easing the loan to deposit ratio will help in addition to pacing the issuance of local bonds to the market’s liquidity direction.”
James Reeve, deputy chief economist and assistant general manager at Samba Financial Group, told Arab News: “Any move to increase liquidity should be seen as positive. It will allow banks to maintain or extend credit lines to customers, allowing them in turn to meet their obligations to suppliers.”
He added: “We expect a cut to the reserve requirement ratio soon.”
According to Jadwa, growth in bank credit to the private sector slowed slightly in June, in line with the slower seasonal activity during Ramadan.
Ihsan Bu-Hulaiga, chairman and founder of Joatha Consulting Center for Business Development, said there are reports of liquidity crunch in the market, and SAMA’s move is to deal with that. 
Government demand has always been key to economic growth. The government demand is going lower and the economy is slowing down, Bu-Hulaiga added.
“Factors like a thorough restructuring of government finance and spending less on capital expenditure will boil down to lowering the level of liquidity,” he told Arab News. 
So the role of SAMA is key to ensuring the ease of financial crunch, Bu-Hulaiga said, adding: “SAMA will have a more amplified role.” 
Reacting to the Bloomberg report, not confirmed by SAMA, Sami A. Al-Nwaisir, chairman, Al-Sami Holding Group, said it could be a normal action by the monetary agency to rectify any possible fall in the liquidity.
“The role of SAMA is to ensure sufficient liquidity in the market,” he told Arab News.
Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, earlier told Bloomberg: “We see SAMA’s move as an immediate support to boost short-term liquidity and for banks’ ability to lend.” 
Malik said: “We expect to see further measures, such as possibly reducing the reserve requirement ratio or increasing the loan-to-deposit ceiling in the coming days.”
The three-month Saudi Interbank Offered Rate has surged 69 basis points this year to 2.24 percent, near the highest level since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 
The rate has risen nine basis points since the end of May.

Source: Arab News