The Saudi government’s deposit growth, together with the continuous increases from people and enterprises, drove the total amount of deposits into the country’s banks to a record high of over SR3 trillion ($800 billion) at the end of February. In February, deposits increased 2.3% month-to-month compared to January, but at their slowest rate in two months—an annual growth of approximately 8.8%.
Based on data from the Saudi Central Bank, the government’s growth in this sector was roughly SR127.6 billion, or 14.8 percent, while individual and company deposits were around SR114.3 billion, or 6.1 percent.
The private sector continues to play a crucial role in supporting banking liquidity, as seen by the fact that individual and business deposits make up 65.6% of total holdings, while government deposits make up approximately 32.5%. Account holders in Saudi banks are moving toward higher-yield choices due to the reshaping of deposit structures caused by increased interest rates.
While demand deposits which do not provide returns to customers—have grown modestly by 9.3 percent over the last three years, time and savings deposits have grown by 1.5 times since the interest-rate increase cycle began. Thus, time and savings accounts increased their proportion of total deposits from 23% before the tightening cycle started in early 2022 to 39.4% by the end of February.
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