National Savings collected target of Rs 173 billion by May 2

May 4, 2020: The Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) has achieved a collection net target of Rs173 billion in the last 10 months of the current fiscal year by May 2.

CDNS has set Rs 352 billion annual collection target for the year 2019-20 as compared to Rs 324 billion for the previous year's 2018-19 to enhance savings and promoting saving culture in the country, a senior official of CDNS told APP here.

The directorate has also revised and increased the gross target of Rs1570 billion for the fiscal year 2019-20, he said.

Replying to a question, he said CDNS had collected Rs 410 billion by June 30, exceeding the target of Rs 324 billion set for the year while during the preceding year of 2017-18, CDNS collected Rs155 billion.

The total savings held by the CDNS stood at Rs 1,150 billion by June 30 while the directorate had Rs 774 billion savings by the same date, a year ago, he said.

The senior official said due to the rationalization of CDNS certificates' rates, the directorate had collected more savings than expected, therefore CDNS revised its target upward from Rs 224 to 324 billion for FY 2018-19.

He said that the investors of Rs 40,000 prize bonds have withdrawn Rs 254 billion by April 25, out of overall reserve of Rs 258 billion investments in CDNS in these prize bonds.

After the decision taken by the Federal government, CDNS had discontinued the specific bond by June 24, 2019, he said.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had directed that national Prize Bonds worth Rs 40,000 denominations should not be sold after June 24, and would not be encashed or redeemed after May 31, 2020.

The bondholders had been given the option of either replacing them with Special Savings Certificates (SSC) or Defence Saving Certificates (DSC), premium prize bonds through State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) field offices or National Bank of Pakistan, United Bank, Habib Bank, Bank Alfalah Ltd, and Allied Bank or encash them at the face value.

The National Savings is expecting that total amount to be drawn by the investors, would be around to Rs 215 billion by end of December 2019 , out of which Rs. 40 billion was drawn in October and Rs 112 billion in two months November and December of the same year, he informed.

Replying to a question, he said CDNS has decided not to change the rates of different Certificates for March 2020 to promote the culture of savings in the country.

The CDNS has already increased rates on various savings certificates aimed at persuading the customers to invest with CDNS.

"In previous board meeting the CDNS notified the upward revision in the profit rates for various saving certificates with effect from November 1(2019), encouraging people to invest in various schemes of the Directorate," he said.

The official was of the view that the upward revision of these certificates would generate more revenues that could be utilized as budgetary support by the government to overcome budget deficit problems.

APP