A large portion of the USD collected by banks since Monday have come as a result of customers switching parts of their deposits and saving certificates from USD to EGP, according to Tarek Amer, the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). He said that the first four days following the EGP free float saw customers only selling USD in cash to buy EGP, which explains the low amount of dollars banks collected during those days. Amer added that since Monday, banks have witnessed a new phenomenon: customers selling parts of their deposits and saving certificates in foreign currencies, switching them to EGP, and then buying the pound saving certificates with a 16% or 20% interest rate that the banks had offered recently. Amer further stated that revenues of the new saving certificates had reached EGP70bn. The size of the foreign currency deposits is expected to decrease significantly in November, while EGP deposits will increase remarkably. Amer expects, however, that the value of the foreign currency deposits will increase significantly as a result of the EGP’s flotation. The USD rate in banks has doubled; thus, the value of these deposits has also doubled. (The Daily News Egypt)