Thursday, 16 October 2008

No Outflow Seen from Local Banks Despite HK Guarantee

Depositors are staying put with local banks amid the turmoil in financial markets.

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Guanyu said...

No Outflow Seen from Local Banks Despite HK Guarantee

By SIOW LI SEN
16 October 2008

(SINGAPORE) Depositors are staying put with local banks amid the turmoil in financial markets.

DBS Bank has even found more deposits flowing into its branches in recent weeks as nervous investors diversify their holdings.

There had been speculation that the local banks may see some leakage of their deposits following Tuesday’s move by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to guarantee bank deposits.

‘As HK just issued their ‘deposit guarantee’, it is too soon to comment on its direct impact on our deposit flows,’ DBS spokeswoman Karen Ngui said yesterday.

‘However, in recent times, DBS has experienced an increase in deposit inflows as a result of our usual business activities,’ she added.

Both United Overseas Bank and OCBC Bank said that they had not experienced any outflow of deposits since Hong Kong came out with its guarantee of deposits.

Citibank Singapore said that it had not seen any unusual activity with regard to its deposits. Citibank Singapore is locally incorporated.

Singapore’s banking system is not in trouble and the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) response to the current financial crisis has been a measured one, said Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam yesterday.

Speaking to reporters on the issue of deposit guarantees, he said: ‘That is something we are studying carefully and I am not making a statement at this point. From the point of view of our system, it is not necessary because there is no lack of confidence in our system. This is something that the market acknowledges. But we are studying the implications of Hong Kong and some other countries.’