MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayans hold 7.18bn in overseas deposits, according to BIS

Transfers dropped in the last quarter but in the twelve months increased 487 million dollars

Deposits of Uruguayans in overseas banks experienced a drop in the last quarter of 2012, the second consecutive fall (3%), and now stand at 7.18bn dollars according to preliminary data released by the Bank for International Settlements.

This means that Uruguayan residents’ deposits overseas ended 2012 at their lowest level since December 2011 when they added to 6.67bn dollars. The stock of currency and assets of Uruguayans overseas fell 223 million dollars in the last quarter, which was less than in the third quarter of last year when it reached 1.27bn dollars, the highest quarter drop since December 2010.

Uruguayan savings overseas, according to BIS, climbed in the first quarter of last year following seven consecutive declining quarters. In effect in the first quarter of 2012 there was a 19.5% increase over the same period a year before, but in the following quarter the tendency was confirmed with another increase of 8,5%.

Total deposits overseas reached 8.7bn dollars and were closer to the historic maximum of March 2010 with 8.9bn dollars. However despite the drops in the third and fourth quarters, the year ended with a 7.3% increase in transfers overseas, equivalent to 487 million dollars more than at the end of 2011.

As to the region’s deposits overseas including Latinamerican and Caribbean countries, they totalled 242bn dollars at the end of 2012, a mere 0.8% less than twelve months before.

Only in three other countries besides Uruguay did deposits overseas increase: Paraguay, 13.8% totalling 1.12bn dollars; Brazil, up 5.8% to 29.6bn dollars and Ecuador, 2.2% with 4.885bn dollars overseas.

In the rest the countries the highest percentage drops in overseas deposits were Argentina, down 2.7%; Venezuela, down 1.7% followed by Chile, 1.2% less and Colombia with a fall of 0.4%.