Govt to bring changes to savings tools benefit rules
Arafat Ara | Thursday, 13 February 2014
The government is set to bring about some changes, especially in the encashment benefit of some state-owned savings tools, to attract more investors, said officials concerned.
Under the proposed changes, investors, in case of pre-mature encashment of their savings certificates after six months, will get profit in lieu of the existing one year timeframe. The savers will also get lien facilities on their savings instruments.
These facilities will be applicable to Five-Year Term Bangladesh Savings Certificates, Family Savings Certificates, Pensioner Certificates, and Three-Yearly Savings Certificates.
The Directorate of National Savings (DNS) officials said the finance ministry has already approved the proposal, which is now waiting for gazette notification.
Earlier, DNS placed a proposal on introduction of such facilities to increase sales of savings schemes, which experienced a poor performance during the last three years, said an official.
He said the state-owned savings schemes cannot attract the savers, as their facilities are rather low comparing to those of the deposit schemes of the private commercial banks. The DNS officials said though the government's net borrowings through savings instruments have significantly increased nowadays, it is mainly for the savers' poor encashment.
Most of the three-year savings instruments matured in the last fiscal year (FY), 2012-13. Other schemes, including the five-year savings tools, will mature next fiscal (2014-15), they added.
Gross sales of savings certificates have declined in the current fiscal year compared to that of last FY, following poor investment facilities.
As per the DNS data, gross sales stood at Tk 104.58 billion in the six months of this fiscal, which was Tk 115.58 billion in the corresponding period of the previous FY.
Net sales of the government savings instruments hit Tk 38.57 billion during the July-December period of this fiscal.
The finance ministry has fixed the target of net borrowing through the savings tools at Tk 49.71 billion for the FY.