The Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) has announced that investors of Rs. 40,000 prize bonds have withdrawn Rs. 152 billion by August 31, out of the total stock of Rs 259 billion from CDNS after the federal government decided to discontinue the specific bond.
According to a senior official of CDNS, National Savings is expecting that the investors will withdraw Rs. 194 billion by end of September, out of which Rs. 40 billion were drawn in July and Rs. 112 billion in August.
A few months ago, the government decided to stop selling the Rs 40,000 prize bond when the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) issued a circular and directed all commercial banks to stop selling the bonds from June 24.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had also announced that these bonds cannot be encashed or redeemed after March 31, 2020.
Answering a question, the official said that CDNS has decided not to change the rates of different certificates for September 2019, as they are trying to promote a savings culture in the country.
They have already increased rates on various savings certificates aimed at persuading the customers to invest with CDNS.
“In previous board meeting the CDNS notified the upward revision in the profit rates for various saving certificates with effect from July 1st (2019), encouraging people to invest in various schemes of the Directorate,” he said.
The official added that the upward revision of these certificates would generate more revenue that could be utilized as budgetary support by the government to overcome the budget deficit.
Increase in Certificate Rates
He said the new rate for Defense Savings Certificate has been increased from 12.47 percent to 13.01 percent while the rate of Special Saving Certificate from 11.57 to 12.90, Regular Income Certificate from 12 percent to 12.96 percent.
Likewise, the rates of Savings Accounts have been increased from 8.5 percent to 10.25 percent while the rates of Bahbood Savings Certificates and Pensioners’ Benefit Account were increased from 14.28 percent to 14.76 percent.
The official said the government had also increased the short-term (3 months), medium-term (6 months) and long-term (12 months) certificates to attract more people towards savings and investments with CDNS.
He said the new rates for short-term certificates have been increased from 9.8 percent to 12.08 percent, medium-term from 9.88 percent to 12.18 percent while the rate of the long-term certificate has been increased from 9.98 percent to 12.28 percent.
Annual Net Targets
CDNS has set a Rs. 350 billion annual target for the year 2019-20, as compared to Rs. 324 billion for 2018-19 to enhance savings and promoting savings in the country, the official said.
The Directorate has also revised and increased the gross target of Rs. 1570 billion for the fiscal year 2019-20, he said.
He informed that CDNS had collected Rs. 410 billion by June 30, exceeding the target of Rs 324 billion set for the year while during the preceding year of 2017-18, CDNS had collected Rs. 155 billion.
The total savings held by CDNS stood at Rs. 1,150 billion by June 30, while the directorate had Rs. 774 billion savings by the same date a year ago, he said.
Soon we may have to introduce a currency for 40,000 due to devaluation