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Savings accounts have lost funds
At the end of August, funds in personal savings accounts decreased for the first time since the beginning of the year. Bankers expect this trend to continue in September and October. At the same time, term deposits continue to grow, the balances of the most popular term deposits have increased by almost 7 trillion rubles since the beginning of the year in six months to the year. Experts attribute this trend to the rhetoric of the central bank and the ongoing policy of raising interest rates.
According to the Central Bank data released at the end of last week, the balance on savings accounts of credit institutions decreased in August for the first time since February of this year, falling below 16 trillion rubles. At the same time, from February to July, the volume of funds in savings accounts increased by 2.3 trillion rubles. At the same time, funds in term deposits grew faster, adding only the most popular deposits. Over the six months to a year since the beginning of the year, 6.7 trillion rubles were accrued, and at the end of August it exceeded 18 trillion rubles.
However, the size of term deposits was able to exceed the savings account only at the end of March. In August, the total balance of term deposits of citizens in banks exceeded 31.5 trillion rubles. It is noteworthy that the balance of the savings account decreased for five out of six months from August last year to January this year, excluding December. However, this is a seasonal phenomenon. This is due to the fact that the balance of the savings account in 2022 increases from June to July 2023, and then there is a short break in January.
Market participants believe that the trend of deposits exceeding savings deposits will continue next year.
As VTB told Kommersant, the trend of decreasing balances on savings accounts continued in September and October. According to the banker, this is due to two factors. September and October are traditionally the months when people spend more money, including savings accounts, which are most often used as profitable wallets. According to VTB, the main interest of clients is now focused on deposits, for which banks are already offering high returns - more than 20%, which can be fixed for a fairly long period of time. "We do not expect that the amount of funds in savings accounts will be able to exceed the amount of funds in deposits, and their growth is mainly guaranteed by rich people," VTB says.
Thus, Stanislav Taivs, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Uralsib Bank, noted that after August 2023, banks have seen a decrease in the share of personal funds in savings accounts and debit cards with interest on balances. The Central Bank has seriously raised the base interest rate for the first time.
"Since then, base interest rates have continued to rise, and banks have been deliberately increasing the share of term deposits in order to offer more attractive interest rates. This is because, while interest rates continue to rise, banks try to lock in customers' money at the current interest rate for at least one month, with guaranteed interest rates on savings accounts and debit cards coming into effect." he says. At the same time, according to him, this trend will continue until the cost of financing in rubles stops growing and the key interest rate begins to fall. "But if this happens, banks will begin to promote more attractive interest rates on savings accounts in every possible way, stimulating customers to transfer money from deposits to savings accounts," said Stanislav Taives.
Andrey Khafizov, Director of Retail Business at Sinara Bank, stated that the trend of increasing the share of traditional bank deposits will continue at least until the end of 2024.
According to him, banks included the increase in the base rate in deposit rates, which made them more attractive, and citizens preferred to secure long-term income through deposits.
Experts predict that the current trend will continue next year. According to Digital Broker analyst Kirill Klimentyev, “hawkish” signals are currently coming from Russian banks and this trend is likely to continue, since monetary policy is not expected to be softened in the coming months. And Timur Aitov, a member of the RF CCI Council for Financial, Industrial and Investment Policy, is confident that this trend will change next summer. “As interest rates slow down and return to a more normal level, savings accounts will begin to grow,” he said.