Banks move excess liquidity to Central Bank

Banks are playing extremely safe on lending with some banks preferring to divert their excess liquidity to the Central Bank, the analysis of the asset book of the UAE banks revealed.

Though most banks have been able to increase their deposit base during 2009, majority of the banks disallowed this trend to reflect in their lending. More than the general reluctance in lending, banks have been utilising this as an opportunity to rein in the unhealthy growth in lending-deposits ratio.

Mashreq though improved its deposits by 4.2 per cent during 2009 to Dh53.6 billion, brought down its lending by 13 per cent to Dh47.7bn.

The bank routed Dh14bn to Central Bank. Its cash and balances with Central Bank as of December were about Dh20b, the bulk of which being certificates of deposits (CDs).

In the case of ADX-listed Union National Bank (UNB), while the deposits grew by about Dh2bn, the advances which stayed at Dh50.768bn, were not allowed to grow in size. The bank thus transferred Dh5bn worth funds to Central Bank during the year.

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