WILLEMSTAD — The Bank of the Netherlands Antilles (BNA) continued to increase the flexibility of their monetary policy during the month of August. According to the summarized balance, this resulted in a decline of the obligated reserve percentage with 0.25 percent point, ending up at 11.25 percent.
This decline resulted in a decrease of the entry ‘Obligated reserves’ with 9.9 million guilders. During the two-weekly auctions of Certificates of Deposit (CD’s), the BNA only concentrated on the re-financing of the expired CD’s. However, the registrations for the auctions were disappointing, whereby the outstanding amount on CD’s decreased 14.6 million guilders.
The reduction of the net courant-account assets of the commercial banks with the BNA (11.2 million guilders) as well as the value of the banknotes in circulation (8.4 million) resulted in a decline of the basic money quantity with 19.6 million guilders.
The reduction in the courant-account assets is amongst others related to the net purchase of foreign currencies with the BNA required for international transactions with regard to a higher return. The net purchase of foreign currencies contributed to the decrease of the entry ‘Foreign currencies’ with 53.6 million guilders on the assets side of the balance.
The decline in the entry ‘Obligations to the government’ is worth mentioning with 42.5 million guilders, which is mainly the result of a decrease in the assets of the central government with the BNA. This decrease was amongst others the result of the payments of expired debt titles of the Land.
Furthermore, the central government contributed towards the Fund Medical Expenses Government Pensioners (FZOG) to the Social Insurance Bank (SVB), and transfers were made to the island territory Curaçao in the framework of the regular debt comparison between these two entities.
In addition, the assets of the island territory Curaçao with the BNA decreased during August. This decrease was also the result of the payment of expired debt titles, which was slightly mitigated by aforementioned transfers of the Land in the framework of the regular debt comparison.
Finally, the entry ‘Obligations to non-residents’ increased with 33.8 million guilders, amongst others due to transfers of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kingdom Relations for the benefit of their account with the BNA in connection with the debt reconstruction.
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