The governor of Bank of Uganda (BoU) Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile has urged Ugandans to save their money through regulated and supervised financial institutions to ensure its safe and preserving value.
“On this special day, the BoU encourages the culture of saving through the Regulated and Supervised Financial Institutions for safekeeping and preservation of the value of the money across time,” the governor said in a statement released Saturday as Uganda celebrated World Savings Day.
“Up to UGX10 million of the deposits in each bank account that is held in a financial institution, which is supervised by BoU, is insured under the Deposit Protection Fund of Uganda,” he revealed.
According to the governor, the deposit products of Supervised Financial Institutions (savings accounts and fixed deposit accounts), earn some interest for the saver.
Therefore, he advised, everyone is encouraged to save and to do so through Regulated and Supervised financial institutions.
The FINSCOPE 2018 survey reported that 10 million (or 54 percent) of adult Ugandans save or put money aside for future uses such as buying food, funding education, and covering emergencies.
According to the survey, only 34 percent of savers were using the formal financial institutions, i.e. commercial banks, microfinance deposit-taking institutions, credit institutions, and Savings and Credit Cooperative organizations.
The theme for this year’s World Savings Day was "SAVE and BE SAFE" and it aimed at promoting the virtue of saving money.
“Saving enables the accumulation of funds for investments SO as to increase households' wealth and enable them to attain a higher standard of living and to secure the economy,” Prof. Mutebile said.
The promotion of saving, including by simplifying the related processes and procedures, is a shared duty across all stakeholders such as financial institutions, regulators, Government and the general public, he explained.
