Chart of the Day: The sharp contrast between Singapore banks’ market shares of total loans and deposits

As banks gather deposits in other currencies.

Total loans and deposits of banks have been going their separate ways for years now, with the former just hovering in the 60% area, while the latter has been creeping up since 2009.

According to analysts from Maybank Kim Eng, the difference in direction may be attributed to the gathering of deposits in other currencies such as the USD.

The market share for SGD deposits has been stable between 60-63%.

“It is probable that the three banks may have been aggressively bidding for non-SGD customer deposits to fund their non-SGD assets. Their market share of system deposits increased by 20.8 ppts from 2009 to 73.5% in 2Q15. The trigger was probably the global financial crisis, which dried up USD liquidity,” Maybank Kim Eng said.