UAE banking reserves rise 11% to AED 1.273 trillion by July 2024

The Central Bank of the UAE’s June statistical bulletin, issued today, showed that the Central Bank accounted for AED771.6 billion of the sector’s net international reserves at the end of July, marking a 14.6% increase compared to its balance of AED673.42 billion at the end of last year, while the net international reserves of banks operating in the country reached AED501.6 billion by the end of July, an increase of 6.22% compared to AED 472.2 billion at the end of 2023.

According to the bulletin, the Central Bank’s gold reserves grew by 23.5% year-on-year (YoY), reaching AED21.28 billion by the end of July, compared to AED17.226 billion in July 2023, an increase of AED4 billion.

In the first seven months of this year, the gold reserves grew by 17.3%, compared to AED18.147 billion at the end of last year.

Gold is included among the Central Bank’s diversified assets, which also encompass liquid funds, certificates of deposit, and securities held to maturity.

The Central Bank's gold reserves have grown significantly over the past years, rising to AED12.862 billion at the end of 2020, compared to AED4.044 billion at the end of 2019 and AED 1.134 billion at the end of 2018.

In another context, the banking operations statistics released by the Central Bank today showed that the value of transfers executed in the banking sector in the UAE through the UAE Financial Transfer System (UAEFTS) exceeded AED11.13 trillion during the first seven months of this year, increasing YoY by 17%, compared to AED9.5 trillion in the same period in 2023.

During the first seven months of the year, AED7.03 trillion of transfers were interbank transfers and AED4.1 trillion were transfers between bank customers.

Remittances reached AED1.512 trillion in January, AED1.449 trillion in February, AED1.565 trillion in March, AED1.592 trillion in April, AED1.78 trillion in May, AED1.42 trillion in June, and AED1.81 trillion in July 2024.

The UAE Financial Transfer System (UAEFTS) is the main remittance system, developed at the Central Bank of the UAE since August 2001, which facilitates the transfer of funds between subscribers to the system in real-time.

The Central Bank’s statistics also revealed that the value of cleared cheques using their images amounted to AED765.08 billion, distributed over more than 13 million cheques during the first seven months of this year.

Cheque clearances, using their images, were distributed as follows: AED109.4 billion for 1.965 million cheques in January, AED106.7 billion for 1.837 million cheques in February, AED112.6 billion for 1.855 million cheques in March, AED92.9 billion for 1.66 million cheques in April, AED122.7 billion for 2.01 million cheques in May, and AED102.17 billion for 1.689 million cheques in June, and AED118.4 billion for more than 2 million cheques in July.

The statistics further indicated that the value of cash deposits at the Central Bank amounted to AED111.4 billion during the first seven months of this year, while the value of cash withdrawals from the Central Bank reached AED120.3 billion.