The value of cash traded outside banks in Saudi Arabia at the end of February was about 182.3 billion riyals, registering an increase of 2.6 percent, equivalent to 4.68 billion riyals, compared to 177.6 billion riyals in the same period last year.
According to an analysis conducted by the report unit in the newspaper "AlEqtisadiah," cash out of banks recorded a fourth straight month of growth at the end of February, specifically since November 2018, where the volume of cash outside banks at the time was 177.8 billion riyals to continue its growth to 182.3 billion riyals by the end of February.
Cash outside of banks hit its highest level in June of 2017, which amounted to 189.9 billion riyals as the highest level of cash outside banks, according to historical data.
Despite the growth in cash outside banks during the current period, annual growth rates of cash outside banks have declined significantly over the past three years, where cash outside banks grew by about 4.7 percent in 2018.
Cash outside banks during 2017 rose by about 1 per cent, the same percentage for 2016.
The growth rates during the period from 2010 to 2015 are an average of 15 per cent.
The growth rate in 2011 was about 25.5 percent at the highest annual growth rate at the time.
The decline in the growth rates of cash outside banks compared to previous years was resulted from the success of government agencies in the fight against commercial concealment and the increase of some shops to carry out transactions through the POS system, which has seen significant growth rates during the last period, in addition to SAMA's success in reducing the value of cash traded outside the banks by developing the banking technology through the provision of a number of programs and initiatives to contribute to reducing the reliance on cash and replacing it with prepaid services.
It has also changed the SPAN system with the most advanced, efficient and fast implementation of Mada.
On the other hand, the monetary base of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) were amounted to about 317.4 billion riyals by the end of February with an annual growth of about 2.75%, an increase of 8.49 billion riyals.
The monetary base consists of deposits of local banks and public financial institutions at SAMA, as well as cash outside banks, in addition to cash in the SAMA Fund with the former accounting for 32.9 per cent of the cash base and cash outside banks at 57.4 per cent.
* Economic Reports Unit
