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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A newly published report by the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) Saturday said the banking sector in the Kingdom has sound and healthy financial indicators in terms of high capital adequacy ratio, low non-performing debt, high profitability and comfortable levels of liquidity.

The "Financial Stability Report for 2017(JFSR2017), revealed the comparison of the banking sector stability index in particular with other countries that developed a similar one showed that Jordan enjoys a healthy, sound, and stable banking sector to a high degree as the Kingdom ranked third among 19 European
countries.

The benchmarking was made with the EU countries , since there was only one Arab country that developed such index, the JFSR2017 said.

The CBJ issues this report to focus on the developments of the banking and financial sector in Jordan and efforts to continue upgrading it, in addition to evaluate the sector's performance and its ability to withstand shocks and risks.

Financial stability is meant to enhance the capacity of banks and other financial institutions to withstand risks and to limit any structural imbalances, as pertinent to the amended law of the CBJ for the year 2016, that expanded the objectives of the bank to include explicitly maintaining financial stability besides monetary stability.

The stress testing results, that are used to measure the ability of banks to withstand shocks, showed
that the Jordanian banking sector is generally capable of absorbing high shocks and risks, even under severe assumptions and scenarios of political and economic turbulences in the neighboring countries and their impact on financial stability in the Kingdom.

The facilities granted by banks to individuals in 2017 grew by 8.2%, to JD 9.5 billion representing 38% of the total banks' facilities, the report said, though at a pace slower compared to the credit facilities granted by banks during 2015 and 2016, which grew by 11.2% and 13% respectively.

Facilities granted by banks to individuals for household and residential lending reached JD 4.2 billion, personal loans stood at JD 3.1billion, car loans at JD 1.2billion, consumer lending at JD 500 million and JD200 million for credit cards .

The findings indicated a rise by 11 per cent in banks credit facilities provided to big companies in 2017 reaching JD9.6 billion, constituting 38.1 per cent of the total banks facilities.

Also facilities provided to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) rose by 5.5 percent reaching JD2.1 billion and constituting 8 percent of the total banks facilities, pointing that efforts and initiatives taken by the CBJ in providing concessional financing to this sector contributed to this rise.