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Chief of Monetary Authority: the reduction of bank's external investments will increase the internal facilities

2009-04-06

Hamed Jad wrote:
The Chief of Monetary Authority Dr.Jihad Al Wazir stressed the importance of regulatory decisions and instructions that had been issued by the Monetary Authority recently, in terms of reducing the proportion of external investments of banks operating in the Palestinian territories from %65 to %55 gradually, and setting a roof for external investments.
Al Wazir explained in an interview with Al Ayyam Newspaper that reducing the proportion of external investments would increase the facilities granted to borrowers with more than $700 million, which will change radically in the transactions and the facilities granted by banks to customers. And clarified that this reflected an affirmative action, and cleared its indicators during the first quarter of this year, where the number of inquiries for loans received by the bank reached 25 thousand, which forms an increase of more than %50compared with the number of inquiries received by the banks during the last quarter of the last year.
He said that reducing the proportion of external investments shared in an active way in reducing risks and gave greater opportunity to expand the base of banking facilities, excepting to witness a marked increase in lending rates this year compared with last year. He noted the achievements of the Monetary Authority of success at the level of lending to public sector employees, which reduced the total value of these loans, which borrowers faced difficulty in payment during the previous period due to the irregular payment of salaries, from $370 million to $140 million, which would allow for the granting of loans to a greater number of public sector employees during the current phase and future.