Expatriate remittances from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia increased by 1.1% during September, compared to the same month last year.
According to data from Saudi Central Bank, expatriate remittances amounted to $3.56 billion last September, compared to $3.52 billion in September of last year.
On a monthly basis, remittances fell 2.8%, compared to about $3.56 billion in August 2021.
Expatriate remittances rose to 116.32 billion riyals ($31.02 billion) in the first nine months of this year, compared to 110.24 billion riyals ($29.4 billion) in the same period last year, an increase of 5.5%.
Remittances from foreigners residing in Saudi Arabia increased by 19.25% during the year 2020, to reach 149.69 billion riyals ($39.92 billion), compared to 125.53 billion riyals ($33.47 billion) in 2019.
The World Bank stated, in a previous briefing, that despite the pandemic, remittances remained resilient in 2020, as they recorded a decline less than what was indicated by previous expectations.
The most recent World Bank Migration and Development Brief showed that officially recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries amounted to $540 billion in 2020, down only 1.6 percent from the total of $548 billion in 2019.
In a separate context, Saudi banks have achieved huge profits since the beginning of this year, in light of the significant growth of their financial items, especially the lending and deposit portfolios.
Since the beginning of this year, Saudi banks have recorded annual growth for the third consecutive quarter, by about 24.3% to about 13.25 billion riyals, supported by the decrease in provisions and the growth of lending.
In the same period last year, banks’ profits grew by 10.66 billion riyals.
Thus, Saudi banks have boosted their growth since the beginning of this year, “a period of nine months” to 68.3 percent, bringing their profits to 36.3 billion riyals, compared to 21.58 billion riyals for the same period of 2020.
The allocations of eight out of ten banks amounted to about 8.55 billion riyals at the end of the first nine months of this year, which is less than the corresponding period of last year, which amounted to 9.88 billion riyals last year.
