Statistics | Int’l business in banking sector drops

The proportion of international business in the local banking sector dropped slightly in the first quarter of 2016, according to a statement released this week by the Monetary Authority of Macau.
At the end of March, the proportion of international assets in the total banking assets category fell to 84.6 percent from 84.9 percent at end-2015, the previous quarter. At the same time, the proportion of international liability in total banking liabilities declined from 80.5 percent to 80.2 percent.
Total international assets dropped slightly by 0.9 percent over the previous quarter, but have increased by 8.9 percent from a year earlier, amounting to MOP1,128.3 billion.
Within this total, external assets increased by 9.1 percent year-on-year to MOP832.1 billion while local assets in foreign currencies went up by 8.4 percent to MOP296.2 billion. As a major component of international assets, external inter-bank loans grew by 10.2 percent to MOP372.9 billion.
Total international liabilities decreased marginally by 0.9 percent from three months ago but advanced 9.2 percent year-on-year to MOP1,069 billion. Of this total, external liabilities and local liabilities in foreign currencies grew year-­on-year by 14.5 percent to MOP589.8 billion and 3.3 percent to MOP479.2 billion respectively.
Non-local currency continued to be the dominant denomination group for international banking transactions. At the end of March 2016, the share of total international assets denominated in HKD, USD and RMB accounted for 41.7 percent, 38.8 percent and 12.4 percent respectively. The proportion of total international liabilities denominated in these three currencies reached 47.1 percent, 34.9 percent and 10.8 percent.