At the same time that the crisis, and then the prolonged recession, began to erode personal consumption, it logically began to increase savings.
Ordinary savings, in banks. Not only because investments fled from the capital market but also because every kuna of surplus, even that from current consumption, was set aside for rainy days. Cumulative figures from the beginning of the crisis, more precisely from December 2008 to September this year, for which the Croatian National Bank has the latest data, show that the term deposits of citizens have significantly increased during this time – almost 30 billion kuna, from 101.8 to 130.2 billion, thus almost eight billion kuna per year! However, given that the recession is tightening more and more, and the number of layoffs at the Employment Service is rising inexorably like the floodwaters of a river, the growth of savings due to fear of a gloomy tomorrow has deflated. Dark days have arrived.
A comparison of data from December 2011 and September this year shows that term deposits have increased by only 3.5 billion kuna. And this is almost the only savings that is growing; savings in all other sectors are more or less stagnating or growing symbolically. Term deposits across all sectors, which make up the largest part of total savings, have increased by a negligible 50 million kuna since December last year (despite the growth in citizens’ savings!), while total savings, that is, savings and term deposits as well as funds in current and giro accounts, have even fallen in these nine months – and not by a symbolic 423 million kuna, from 282.4 to 281.9 billion kuna. The movement of kuna savings does not show resistance to the recession either: from December 2011 to September this year, it has increased by only 1.3 billion kuna, to a total of 93.8 billion, which means that there is little trust in the domestic currency in this recessionary nightmare, despite the endangered euro. Who is still saving, which layer of society and what profile of savers, cannot be discerned from official data. However, if companies continue to close at the same pace as before (more than 600 people register at the Employment Service every day), there is no doubt that the last component of savings that is not collapsing will also give way.
