BDL’s latest statistics on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) increased by LBP 2,537B to stand at LBP 1,202,897B ($ 80.19B) by the week ending March 23, 2023. Furthermore, on an annual basis, M3 dropped by 3692% year-over-year and by 46.82% since year-start (YTD). Noting that effective February 1st 2023, the official exchange rate has been set at LBP 15,000 per dollar
In details, M1 increased by LBP 2,330B by a week to settle at LBP 90,599B ($6.04B) by March 23, due to an increase in demand deposits of LBP 5,384 B and a decrease in currency in circulation of LBP 3,054 B.
In turn, total deposits (excluding Demand deposits) added LBP 207,13B ($13.80M), owing to a decrease in Terms and saving deposits by LBP 33B and an increase in deposits denominated in foreign currencies by $16M.
As such, the rate of broad money dollarization declined from 91.173% in the week ending March 16, 2023 to 91.00% in the week ending March 23, 2023.
Looking at interest rates, the average rate on deposits in LBP at commercial banks decreased from 0.78% in May 2022 to 0.84% in May 2023. Similarly, the average rate on deposits in USD at commercial banks decreased from 0.13% in May 2022 to 0.09% in May 2023. In its turn, the average lending rate in LBP and USD, at commercial banks, went down from 5.13% and 5.06% in May 2022 to 3.53% and 2.30%, respectively, in May 2023.
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 May 2023, M3 stood at LBP 1,211,418.8B versus LBP 1,972,71.2 B in May 2022; NFA were LBP 220,838.5B compared to LBP 205,06.1B in May 2022; CPS was LBP 137,054.7B compared to LBP 36,351.7B in May 2022; NCPS was LBP 857,052.2B compared to LBP 44,074.8B in May 2023; and OIN were negative LBP 3,526.7B compared to LBP 96,338.7B in May 2022, 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 March 23, 2023, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) raised LBP 6,716M ($7.01M) through the issuance of T-Bills maturing in 6 months (6M) while the yield stood at 4%.
Source: BDL; MoF