The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said on Monday that household savings recorded growth in the first half of the year.

A press release said that the growth “indicates that citizens’ trust in the domestic financial system has been preserved”.

“The NBS’s latest semi-annual analysis of the profitability of savings, for the period June 2012 –June 2022, has confirmed that it pays off more to save in the domestic currency. The dominant contributing factors were, primarily, the achieved and maintained macroeconomic stability over a longer period, higher interest rates on dinar than on euro savings and the fact that dinar savings are not subject to tax,” it added.

According to the NBS, “greater profitability was underpinned by the timely monetary and fiscal measures aimed at mitigating the negative effects of the pandemic-induced crisis and the escalation of the Ukraine conflict”.

Dinar savings recorded a growth of almost five times the level of 10 years ago, reaching 85.9 billion Dinars at the end of June 2022.

The NBS said that the share of the public debt in the projected GDP in 2022 was cut to 53.2% in June (56.5% at the end of 2021), and the share of NPLs in total loans to 3.3%, its lowest level since the start of implementation of the NPL Resolution Strategy in 2015.