Bank’s general manager says over 600 borrowers have been banned from traveling due to non-performing loans

The general manager of the Real Estate Bank said that the number of delinquent borrowers being pursued legally on behalf of the bank exceeded 45,000 people, with 604 of them banned from traveling, adding that it had collected about five billion Syrian pounds at the end of last year.

The bank’s general manager Ahmed al-Ali added that the bank was in the process of carrying out executive steps to guarantee some of the non-performing loans, up to the stage of selling them at public auction. Ali noted the bank is currently in the process of collection.

The balance of deposits and current accounts in the bank reached about 209 billion pounds at the end of 2015, spread between 109.68 billion pounds of term deposits – which comprised 52.5 percent of the total deposits – followed by current accounts, which reached about 66 billion pounds, or 31.5 percent of total deposits.

According to Ali, savings deposits reached about 23.38 billion pounds at the end of 2015, or 11.2 percent of the total balance of deposits and current accounts, while certificates of deposit accounts at the bank did not exceed 651,000 pounds.

According to the bank’s numbers, the number of its clients exceeded 616,140 throughout 2015, while the monthly sum of government salaries in Damascus reached about 6.6 billion pounds.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.