MUSCAT: Oman’s conventional banks have achieved an 8.89 per cent growth in total credit at OMR17.82 billion in the first half of the year ending June 2015, from OMR16.37 billion in the same period last year, according to the Central Bank of Oman’s statistics released here on Tuesday.
It is lower than last year’s loan growth and was mostly driven by the private sector demand to fund their projects and working capital requirements.
Because of continued low oil prices, the banks will be more conservative in lending going forward and focus more on the credit quality rather than quantity. Under such a scenario, the overall credit growth could slip to mid-single digits in 2015.
Credit to private sector for the six-month period rose by 9.82 per cent to OMR15.61 billion from OMR14.21 billion.
Hamoud Sangour Al Zadjali, executive president of Central Bank of Oman (CBO) earlier said that the credit growth for the whole year would be in double digits and would probably hover around 10 per cent.
Total deposits of Omani banks also rose by 6.83 per cent for the first half of 2015 at OMR18.51 billion, from OMR17.32 billion for the same period last year, noted the CBO said in its monthly statistics.
Oman has seven conventional banks — Bank Muscat, National Bank of Oman, BankDhofar, HSBC Bank Oman, Bank Sohar, Oman Arab Bank and ahlibank.
