The National Bank of Belarus has published statistics showing that Belarusians are actively withdrawing money from their deposits.
The money supply consists of deposits of individuals and legal entities. These deposits can be in rubles and foreign currency, transferable and others. Transferable deposits are usually current accounts of enterprises and card accounts of citizens, from which you can withdraw money quickly enough. Other deposits are deposits, which are placed in banks for a certain period. And if such deposits are irrevocable, the banks protect themsemselves from early withdrawal of money.
According to https://banki24.by/, in September the average balances on ruble transferable deposits of individuals amounted to 2.866 billion BYN. Compared to the balances in August, they decreased by 722.6 million BYN. Such a large decrease is usually not typical for September; it is explained by the devaluation of the Belarusian ruble and the conversion of some savings into foreign currency.
Time deposits in Belarusian rubles in September totaled 4.602 billion BYN. Back in August, they were more by 215.4 million BYN.
In September, the average balance in foreign currency accounts of Belarusians amounted to $ 6.199 billion. Compared with August, it is less by $ 706.2 million.
The Belarusians started actively withdrawing money from bank accounts and hiding it under mattresses in April. The country’s citizens have already withdrawn $ 1.428 billion from banks.
In September 2020, there remained $1.230 billion in card accounts of individuals, which is $259.2 million less than in August.
Vadzim Iosub, senior analyst at Alpari Eurasia, shared his vision of the financial market situation with Belsat:
“When people make decisions about where to keep money, make investments or, conversely, withdraw money from bank accounts, they are guided by two emotions: fear and greed. Greed stimulates the desire to earn more, and fear is guided by the risk of losing. Now, especially since August, if we talk about Belarusian depositors, both of these emotions are actively working. First, greed in this case is due to the fact that, at least until December, rates on bank deposits (in rubles and foreign currency) were actively reduced. As a result, depositors did not earn so much, and there was less incentive to keep money in banks. Plus, this summer there added a fear of keeping money in banks.
Although, by and large, not banks became the reason for this. It is well known that in our country there is a legal default, there is no trust in the state and its institutions, in the legal system, the judicial system, etc. And the loss of confidence in banks is one of the manifestations of the loss of confidence in the state and all its institutions among other things. That is, what we have: greed diminishes, you can earn less and less in banks, distrust grows, fear of keeping money in banks grows, as a reaction to this, people actively withdraw their money from banks. To a greater extent it concerns currency deposits, while ruble deposits are affected to a lesser extent.
It is impossible to give any advice to depositors here. After all, no one adequate will advise not to be afraid to keep money in banks. Because nobody will give guarantees that it will be safe to keep money in banks and nothing will happen to the banking system unless the situation starts to change.
On the other hand, it is also impossible to urge people to run away and take money from banks immediately. After all, if all depositors run to the banks with the desire to withdraw their money, then about 20 percent of them will have time to withdraw money, and then the banks will run out of money. That is, it turns out: whoever first takes his money, will leave the rest without money. It turns out that it was not the regime that punished, not the banks, but some depositors punished others. The only thing to say is that everyone has their own head on the shoulders and everyone decides for himself what to do in such a situation.
