TIRANA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Businesses in Albania are opting for time deposits rather than leaving savings in current accounts, where they can withdraw them whenever they want, the Bank of Albania data showed Tuesday.
Total stock of total business deposits (non-financial corporate) amounted to about 1 billion euros (1.16 billion U.S. dollars) in September.
While businesses tend to put their money in banks, Albanian households are withdrawing savings in national currency Lek from banks, as interest rates have not been favorable in recent years.
The Bank of Albania statistics published showed that households' deposits amounted to 249 billion leks -- 25 percent of total national savings -- at the end of September.
Compared with January 2013, deposits have fallen by 26 percent, or almost 650 million euros have been withdrawn from the banks in search of more profitable alternatives such as investments in longer-term maturities (over two years), real estate purchase, government securities etc.
In September, businesses put 3.3 billion leks (about 24 million euros) in banks as time deposits, marking higher growth than any other category of all sectors.
