Published in Bangladesh Post on Wednesday, 4 July 2018
Saving tools sales reach Tk 731b
Belal Muntasir
Sales of saving tools, including saving certificates and bonds, reached Tk 73,094 crore in the July-May period of the just-concluded fiscal.
However, the net investment, after paying capital and interests on previously invested amount, stood Tk at 43,363 crore.
Deputy Director (admin and public relations) of the Directorate of National Savings (DNS) Razia Begum confirmed the figures to Bangladesh Post.
DNS data said the figure of net investment was Tk 46,669 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal 2016-17 that means the investment has comparatively been reduced in recent days.
However, the sale is satisfactory as the record till May is very near to revised target of Tk 78,617 crore set for the whole fiscal, according to DNS officials.
They believe the sales surpassed the target set for the recently-concluded fiscal that can be confirmed after getting the awaited statistics for the last month of the outgoing fiscal.
DNS data shows saving certificates and bonds sales fetched Tk 6,432 crore in May this year where net investment was Tk 3,300 crore.
Expert said people, mostly belonging to middle class, were rushing to buy the tools at the fag-end of the 2017-18 fiscal in apprehension of the interest rate cut as the finance minister hinted the interest rate on the tools would be reconciled with market rate (bank and financial institutions’ interest rate on FDR) in July.
People are more interested to invest in savings tools as the platform offers higher interest rate in comparison with those offered by banks and financial institutions, said Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
Besides, many investors consider the saving tools safe instead of investing in stock market, he added.
Moazzem told Bangladesh Post that the government has also raised dependency on the tools as they had no better alternatives.
He said the government had rightly assumed at the outset of the concluded fiscal year that the country’s revenue collection could miss the target.
So they (government) had to borrow more from saving tools as the banking sector by own was in crisis, he added.
However, currently people are getting various types of profit rates based on tools category, while family savings certificate offers 11.52 percent profit, pension savings 11.76 percent, five-year Bangladesh savings certificate 11.28 percent, three months profit-based savings certificates 11.04 percent, and the three-year post office savings certificate offers 11.28 percent.
The government near the end of the fiscal had revised its neat borrowing target upward from saving tools at Tk 44,000, a rise of 45.93 percent for the concluded fiscal year. The target was previously set at Tk 30,150 crore, according to DNS.
The government borrows money from public through selling savings tools, including savings certificates and bonds, to meet the fiscal deficit.