Local residents’ renminbi deposits down 9.5 pct in August

Local residents’ renminbi deposits declined 9.5 per cent in August, according to the Monetary and Financial Statistics of the Monetary Authority of Macau. Overall, locals’ deposits declined 2.5 per cent year-on-year during August, to MOP466.99 billion (US$58.5 billion) from 479.06 billion.
The fact that deposits in RMB decreased at a faster pace than deposits in Hong Kong dollars (-0.2 per cent) and the Macanese pataca (-2.6 per cent) and other currencies (-2.1 per cent) was related to the deflation of the Chinese currency, which occurred during the middle of August.
As the US dollar strengthened in relation to the renmimbi, deposits in the American currency increased by 4.7 per cent. This also underlines the concerns local residents have about the further devaluation of the Chinese currency.
Deposits by non-residents grew 10.3 per cent year-on-year in August, to MOP256.06 billion from MOP232.19 billion, while deposits of the public sector in banks increased 38.6 per cent year-on-year to MOP125.55 billion from MOP90.59 billion. As a result, deposits with the banking sector increased in the eighth month of the year by 5.8 per cent to MOP848.58 billion from MOP801.84 billion.

More loans
Still in August, domestic loans to the private sector increased year-on-year 19.6 per cent to MOP389.1 billion from MOP311.86 billion. Of the MOP389.13 billion, MOP103.61 billion was MOP-denominated, MOP252.93 billion was denominated in HKD, MOP3.11 billion was denominated in CNY and MOP23.88 billion was denominated in USD, representing 26.8 per cent, 65.5 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 6.2 per cent of the total, respectively.
At the same time, external loans grew 19.6 per cent year-on-year to MOP395.18 billion from MOP342.87 billion. Of these, loans denominated in MOP, HKD, CNY and USD accounted for 1.5 per cent (MOP5.80 billion), 23.7 per cent (MOP93.88 billion), 19.4 per cent (MOP76.72 billion) and 49.9 per cent (MOP197.05 billion), respectively.
As at the end of August, the loan-to-deposit ratio both for residents and non-resident sectors stood at 92.1 per cent, which was an increase of 9.1 percentage points from 83.0 per cent in August 2014.