Liquidity in local banks continued to be under stress as total liquid assets in the country's banking system dropped 5.92% in October compared to June earlier this year.
According to the monthly update for November on the country's major economic indicators, released Wednesday by Bangladesh Bank, the total liquid assets stood down at Tk415,000 crore in October but the figure was significantly higher at Tk441,000 crore as of June 2022.
The minimum required liquid assets of the scheduled banks at the end of October were Tk245,000 crore.
It means the volume of excess liquidity in banks plummeted to Tk169,000 crore from almost Tk200,000 crore recorded in June last.
At the same time, total liquid assets in excess of maintained SLR also declined 0.43% in October compared to the previous months following gradual increase in credit demand alongside Bangladesh Bank's recent intervention in the foreign-exchange market with sale of the US dollar.
The trend of currency outside banks is moving upward as a total of Tk200,000 crore had gone outside the banks till October 2021 but the amount shot up to Tk236,000 crore as of October 2022.
In terms of group-wise banks, unconventional banks witnessed the highest fall in total liquid assets by 17.60% followed by state-owned banks (11.86%) and conventional private banks (3%).
On the other hand, total liquid assets in foreign and specialized banks rose by around 17% and 3.75% respectively.