Kathmandu. There are signs of lack of liquidity in the market. In the second week of last December, there was an excess liquidity in the banking system at around Rs 200 crore. At present, there is liquidity of Rs 47.38 billion, according to Nepal Rastra Bank.

As the system lacks liquidity, the weighted average interest rate on interbank transactions between banks is also rising. The interbank interest rate rose to 3.43 percent in just two months from an average of 0.1 percent in the second week of December, according to the NRB.

The interbank interest rate was 0.21 percent when the banking system had excess liquidity of Rs 191 billion on December 31. The NRB has informed that the liquidity was Rs 151 on January 1 and the interbank interest rate was 0.21 percent.

Similarly, the interbank interest rate had risen to 0.86 percent on January 30 when liquidity in the banking system declined to Rs 89 billion.

The banking system had a liquidity of Rs 69 billion on March 20 and the interbank interest rate had reached 0.58 percent. Similarly, there was liquidity of Rs 69 billion in the banking system and inter-bank transactions at 0.53 percent on March 30.

Interbank transactions were at an interest rate of 2.97 percent when liquidity in the system declined to Rs 34 billion on March 10. In the meantime, the liquidity has increased to Rs 47 billion on April 20, said Bhatta.

According to the NRB, banks and financial institutions have collected Rs. 43.51 trillion in deposits and disbursed Rs. Of which, commercial banks alone have collected Rs 38.33 trillion in deposits and disbursed Rs 34.14 trillion in loans.