Major Kurdish Kosovars, over 3 billion euros in banks

The value of customer deposits in Kosovo's ten commercial banks by October of this year has reached over 3 billion euros, the Kosovo Central Bank has announced.

Of this amount, more than 2.2 billion euros are money saved from family economies, until companies have stored over 750m euros. The value of other currency saved by Kosovo citizens totals 154m euros.

The value of deposits also exceeds the amount of total loans at the country level.

According to Kosovo Central Bank data, the credit value has reached over 2.6 billion euros, where family economies have about 1 billion euros of loans in commercial banks, while companies have over 1.6 billion euros.

This large amount of tools saved in relation to loans from field experts and business representatives are explained in various ways.

Financial Affairs expert Milazizim Abazi tells Radio Free Europe that the value of deposits should be in relation to the loan.

“Deposit is growing much slower than loans. Citizens are having more credit requirements than are bank opportunities to lend because of the slow increase in deposits or savings. While savings have increased 6 percent a year in loan demand have increased by about 15 percent”, Abazi points out.

According to him, Kosovo, compared to countries in the region, has the lowest per capita deposit level. He adds that commercial banks would have to increase interest in deposits so that citizens can save even more.

“The reduction of interest in the deposit has influenced them not to grow at the right pace. If banks increased interest in savings, citizens would save more, and that would later enable banks to increase the potential for credit”, Abazi points out.

According to official data from the Central Bank of Kosovo, the interest in deposits is only 1.5 percent, while credit interest is brought from 6 to 7.7 percent, depending on the type of credit and commercial banks.