BDL’s latest statistics on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) decreased by LBP 141B ($94M) to stand at LBP 201,705B ($133.80B) by the week ending April 22, 2021. As such, on an annual basis, M3 increased by 3.14% year over year and by 1.24% since year-start (YTD).
In details, M1 increased by a weekly LBP 192B ($127M) to settle at LBP 47,936B ($31.80B) by April 22, 2021. The increase is mainly attributed to a decrease in demand deposits of LBP 196 billion and an increase in currency in circulation of LBP 388 billion.
In turn, total deposits (excluding Demand deposits) decreased by $221.05M, owing to a decrease in Terms and saving deposits in LBP by 191B ($126.69M). In addition, deposits denominated in foreign currencies decreased by $94M.
As such, the rate of broad money dollarization slightly decreased from 63.78% in the week ending April 15, 2021 to 63.758% in the week ending April 22, 2021.
Looking at interest rates, the average rate on deposits in LBP and in USD, at commercial banks, decreased from 5.13% and 2.53% in March 2020 to 1.96% and 0.54%, respectively, in March 2021. As for the average lending rate in LBP, it went down from 9.41% in March 2020 to 8.02% in March 2021, while the average lending rate in USD declined from 8.55% in March 2020 to 7.14% in March 2021.
Analytically, the money supply M3 can be derived from combining the balance sheet of BDL with the balance sheet of banks to arrive at the monetary survey of the banking system. The resulting M3 would be equal to the sum of: net foreign assets (NFA), credit to the private sector (CPS), net credit to the public sector (NCPS), and other items net (OIN). Latest data show that in March 2021, M3 stood at $134.11B, 2.9% more than March 2020; NFA were $15.30, less by 38.64% YOY; CPS was $32.82B, less by 23.16% YOY; NCPS was $39.92B, less by 10.08% annually; and OIN were $46.06B, higher by an annual 152.37%, and comprising mostly (in BDL’s terminology) other assets which include open market operations and seigniorage, considered to be a controversial account by some.
In its treasury bills (T-Bills) auction dating April 22, 2021, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) raised LBP 569.81B ($377.98M) through the issuance of T-Bills maturing in 6 months (3M) and notes maturing in 3 year (3Y) and 7 years (7Y). The highest demand was recorded on the 7Y notes which grasped 61.49% of total subscriptions, while 3Y notes and 6M T-bills accounted for the remaining shares of 36.50% and 2.01%, respectively. In details, the yield on 6M stood at 4% while coupon rate on the 3Y and 7Y notes stood at 5.58% and 6.50%, respectively.
Source: BDL; MoF