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Pursuant to Article 18 of the Central Bank of Montenegro Law (OGM 40/10, 46/10, 06/13 and 70/17) and based on the provisions of the Decision of credit institutions Reserve Requirement to be Held with the Central Bank of Montenegro (OGM 19/22), banks are obliged to calculate, allocate and maintain reserve requirement by applying the ratio of 5.5% on the portion of the reserve requirement base comprising of demand deposits and time deposits with agreed maturity up to 365 days and/or 366 days, while the ratio of 4.5% shall be applied to the portion of the base comprising of time deposits with agreed maturity over 365 days and/or 366 days. The ratio of 5.5% shall be applied to deposits with agreed maturity over 365 days and/or 366 days which have the cancellation clause in the period shorter than 365 days and/or 366 days. As of January 2018, the base for the calculation of the reserve requirement includes demand and time deposits with the exception of the central banks’ deposits.

Credit institutions shall calculate the base during the calculation period which is a monthly period, from the first until the last calendar day in the respective month. Credit institutions shall allocate and/or withdraw reserve requirement to their reserve requirement accounts in the country and/or to the Central Bank accounts abroad on the third Wednesday every month, and they may not allocate or hold their reserve requirement in any other form. The maintenance period shall be considered one month starting from the third Wednesday in the respective month until the day preceding the third Wednesday of the following month (see Reserve Requirements Calendar).

The Central Bank shall pay interest to credit institutions on 50% of the total allocated credit institutions reserve requirement on a monthly basis, until the eighth day in a month for the previous month, at €STR (Euro Short Term Rate) rate minus 10 basis points annually, provided that the rate could not be below zero.

Credit institutions may use up to 50% of their reserve requirement funds interest-free to maintain their daily liquidity, provided that they return all of the amount they have used on the same day.

A credit institution shall pay a fee specified in a separate Central Bank regulation if it fails to return the used amount of reserve requirement on the same day and on the amount of the difference between the prescribed and miscalculated or misallocated reserve requirement or if it fails to allocate reserve requirement by the specified deadline.

More information on this instrument could be found here.

Monthly Data

As at 31 October 2023, the calculated and allocated reserve requirement amounted to 289.77 million Euros, of which 71.24% was allocated to the reserve requirement account in the country, and the remaining 28.76% to the CBCG accounts abroad. 

Total credit institutions’ deposits, serving as the base for the calculation of the reserve requirement, averaged to 5,309.29 million Euros. Demand deposits accounted for 83.64% of total deposits, while time deposits accounted for the remaining 16.36%.

In million Euros  

In million Euros