Quarterly Statistical Digest - February 2019
Published: Friday March 8th, 2019
WHAT'S NEW?
The Central Bank has for several years, focused on publishing data for the domestic banking system, which includes those financial institutions designated as Resident pursuant to the Exchange Control Regulations. However, commencing with the February 2019 edition of the Quarterly Statistical Digest (QSD), the Bank will now publish balance sheet data on All Public Banks &/or Trust Companies.
As a result, new tables have been added to Section 2 of the QSD and the ordering of the tables has been adjusted to reflect the shift in focus. Specifically, the new Tables 2.1 and 2.2, show a consolidated summary of the assets and liabilities of all of the banks licensed in this jurisdiction, while Tables 2.3 and 2.4 provide a summary of the total assets and total liabilities of non-resident banks &/or trust companies-designated in accordance with Exchange Control Regulations. The four new tables, each display an annual series from 2012 to 2018 and a quarterly series, which commences in Q1 2014. In addition, Tables 2.9-2.33 have been renamed to reflect the fact that they relate only to the domestic banking sector.
An analysis of the data, revealed that the asset base of the Public Banks &/or Trust Companies, has contracted over the last five years, from close to $400.0 billion to approximately $184.0 billion, a decline of 53.7%, due mainly to a change in firms' business models (treasury operations), which resulted in a shift in their asset base to other jurisdictions. The non-resident entities' asset base accounts for 90.3% of the total, while domestic banks represent a mere 9.7%; however, the bulk of the latter relates to assets domiciled in The Bahamas.
The published data provides a benchmark as to market share of the Bank's supervised financial institutions (SFIs) and gives an indication of the size and complexity of the industry. Thus, the Bank will continue to provide this data to the public in its quarterly publications, to keep them further informed about developments within the financial sector.
For complete viewing of monetary, financial and economic statistics through December 2018, please click on the document below.
