Saudi Arabia’s Central Bank has instructed banks to change the way they calculate their loan-to-deposit ratios, giving greater weight to long-term deposits in order to permit more lending, according to a report on the Maaal financial news website. The new rules, set to come into effect in early April, will introduce a weighting system for calculating a bank’s deposits, ranging from 100% for the face value of deposits on demand to 190% for deposits of over five years, Maaal quoted unnamed sources as saying. The Kingdom’s maximum loan-to-deposit ratio for commercial banks will remain at 90%, the report said; but, by increasing the value of deposits in the calculation, the new system will give more room for loans to increase. The Saudi Arabian Central Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Maaal report. It last raised the loan-to-deposit ratio in February 2016, to 90% from 85%. The current industry-wide ratio is well below the ceiling, at 79.9% in January, because of low loan demand due to slow economic growth.