The loan comes first
Start by dropping loanable funds. Credit at Omani banks stood at 102.9 per cent of deposits at the end of June, according to the monthly statistical bulletin of the Central Bank of Oman as carried by Arab News. Private sector deposits reached 19.37 billion rials, or 50.4 billion dollars, 12.45 per cent more than a year earlier.[1]
An accounting identity binds that print: credit that exceeds private-sector deposits sits, at the same moment, on funding outside that stock. The bulletin does not split the residual line. The loan comes first and the deposit is its shadow; whether that credit becomes spending is a separate behavioural claim, not something the 102.9 per cent ratio settles.[1]
How long the deposits stay, and in which currency
Demand deposits made up 7.28 billion rials, savings deposits 6.54 billion rials and time deposits 5.22 billion rials. Holdings in rials came to 16.60 billion rials against 2.67 billion rials in foreign currency. The slice that can leave first is demand; the foreign-currency leg is thin beside the rial stock.[1]
Across the Gulf Cooperation Council, outstanding credit facilities were about 2.17 trillion dollars at the end of March, 9.2 per cent higher than a year earlier, on figures from Kamco Invest. Oman-listed banks showed the fastest deposit growth in the region at that date. Fast deposit growth does not have to pull the credit-to-deposit ratio below 100 per cent; the June print shows even that fastest-growing private deposit stock had not caught the credit already written. Another reading remains open: the 2.67 billion rials in foreign currency may already cover the slice above 100 per cent of the 19.37 billion rials private-sector stock.[1]
The line to watch in the next bulletin
If the Central Bank of Oman publishes a later monthly statistical bulletin under the same headings, the signal to watch is the credit-to-deposit ratio together with the split between rial and foreign-currency holdings. A ratio that stays above 100 per cent while foreign-currency holdings remain near 2.67 billion rials would keep the gap outside the rial private-deposit stock.[1]