Trade
5 years ago

Tightened rules

Savers switch over to FDR from savings tools: BB

Picture used for illustrative purpose only — Collected
Picture used for illustrative purpose only — Collected

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The majority of savers prefer fixed deposit schemes of the banks to national savings schemes while making investment decisions.

Only a few of them would be involved in business activities instead.

The findings came from a survey commissioned by the Bangladesh Bank, which was released this month.

Currently, the authorities tightened the rules or compliance requirement for investing in savings tolls including, increasing tax on the yields by a 5.0 percentage point to 10 per cent, effective from fiscal year 2020.

The authorities now ask for national identity cards (NIDs) of the investors and the persons whose income is used.

The tightened measures by the government appear to be reducing the dependency from this expensive source.

The Bangladesh Bank conducted the survey on "Investment in National Savings Certificates (NSCs) of Bangladesh."

General manager Dr Md. Habibur Rahman was the chief-coordinator and deputy general manager Rokeya Khatun was the co-author of the survey conducted during September-October period in 2018.

The size of the sample is 512 investors chosen randomly and eight officials working at the Bangladesh Bank.

The main objective of the study is to analyse the savings behaviour of the people focusing on NSCs in Bangladesh.

However, the survey said respondents prefer Paribar Sanchayapartra to other savings schemes.

Any woman whose age is above 18 years, unprivileged groups, especially people with physical and mental challenges and senior citizens (above 65 years) can buy such tools.

Moreover, currently investors of this scheme can receive yields on a monthly basis.

The report said the main sources of income of the investors in these instruments are their own savings, spouses' income and retirement benefits.

In most cases, female buyers get money from others, which seem that females buy NSCs in the name of their husbands or parents to some extent, the survey said.

It said the yield from the NSCs is mainly used to meet up the family expenditures.

"Some of the people use their money for re-investment purposes as well," it said.

The survey revealed that most of the people prefer Bangladesh Bank and its branches to buy NSCs compared to other institutions such as post office, national savings directorate, commercial banks, etc.

It said long queue is the main problem in receiving NSCs related services from the central bank. "People sometimes have to go many counters for the services," the report said.

It said some investors find difficulty in buying their desired NSCs due to the scarcity of the forms.

Most of the respondents have the information of the recent downtrend in deposit rates, which might have encouraged them to depend on NSCs.

The authors, however, recommend the government may continue selling of national savings certificates to finance the budget deficit since Bangladesh is still in a good position in terms of debt sustainability.

It said the government may leave the single buyer exposure limit unchanged as it is a part of its social safety net initiatives.

The return from the existing single buyer exposure limit, around 4.5 million, is seemed as necessary for maintaining family expenses, they suggest.

They also suggested the government should ensure that the target group, especially the small savers from rural areas, gets easy access to the purchase of NSCs via post office or rural bank branches, which will effectively broaden the social safety net coverage and benefit the mass people.

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