Govt cutting savings certificates interest rates to ease debt burden

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has announced a cut in interest rates on savings certificates.

He says the new rates will not exceed 2 percentage points more than the interest rates on bank deposits.

It will be officially announced in or after the next budget, he says.

"Generally, the rate is 1 or 2 percentage points more than the rates of interest on bank deposits. But the difference is more than 4 percentage points now.

"Investment in this sector will increase if it continues. The government's future debts will rise. That's why we are taking the decision to review it," he said at a pre-budget discussion on Sunday with Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Bangladesh Insurance Association.

Currently, banks offer 4 to 6 percent interest on deposits while rates on savings certificates are up to 12 percent.

Interest rates on savings certificates were slashed by 2 percentage points for the last time in 2015.

It was done to discourage investment in the sector, because more sales of certificates mean more government borrowing.

Even after the cut, a five-year family savings scheme of Tk 100,000 now yields a monthly return of Tk 912. Earlier the same investment would return Tk 1,070 per month.

At Sunday's meeting, DCCI Senior Vice President Kamrul Islam pointed out that investment in the private sector was not growing as much as they would have liked it to because people were still buying savings certificates due to their interest rates being higher than those on bank deposits.

"The interest rates on bank loans dropped a little recently, but those are still high. The high interest rates on savings certificates are a hurdle to cutting interest rates on bank loans," he said.

Muhith concurred.

"It's right that the interest rates on savings certificates are high. I will review it. The rates will be reduced in the budget or after it is passed."    

The government target is to borrow Tk 196.1 billion from savings certificates in 2016-17 fiscal year, but the net sales of the certificates crossed Tk 376.48 billion three months before the end of the fiscal.

Net sales are calculated by deducting the liquidated amount of previously sold certificates from the total sales of savings certificates at a given time.

On the other hand, the money that is left after paying the capital and interest is considered as the government’s debt for which it has to pay interest.