Home > Financial > Brexit uncertainty helps drive Irish saving sentiment to all time high

Brexit uncertainty helps drive Irish saving sentiment to all time high

Written by Robert McHugh, on 14th Mar 2019. Posted in Financial

article headline

The latest Bank of Ireland/ESRI Savings and Investment Index was released today. The index tracks household attitudes towards savings and investment as well as monitoring their perspectives on the current and future savings and investment environment. 

Regular savings patterns remained strong in February with 51% of people saving regularly. People also seemed more comfortable around the amounts that they were saving - the percentage saying the felt they didn’t save enough falling to a six month low in February. Together this pushed the Saving Attitude subindex to a six month high of 110. 

The more notable aspect of the improved saving sentiment in February was the increased positive sentiment among Irish people towards the savings environment, something which has tended to hold back overall savings sentiment in the past year. The percentage of people that felt it was a good time to save rose to 43% in February (up from 41% in January) while the percentage of people that felt it was a bad time to save fell to 26%, the lowest in a year and down from 29% in January. 

In addition, people felt it would be an even better time to save in six months – 42% felt it would be a good time to save in six months’ time, more than double the 18% that felt it would be a bad time to save. Together these responses pushed the Saving Environment subindex to 103 in February, the strongest reading since January 2018. 

The Investment Index treaded water in February, remaining unchanged at 97 compared to January. However, investment activity patterns and sentiment on the market outlook went in completely opposite directions in the month. Given the backdrop of recent investment market volatility and the fast approaching Brexit date, the Investment Attitudes subindex surprisingly rose to 109 in February, its highest level since August.

The percentage of people investing regularly hit a one year high of 36% in February, driven by stronger investment patterns from younger people (under 50) and those in Dublin in particular.

This positivity however was offset by other data indicating that Irish people remain very downbeat on the outlook for investment markets. For the third month in a row the Investment Environment subindex hit a fresh all-time low of 85. This was despite the recent stock market recovery continuing in February with global stock markets now up 11% for Irish investors since the beginning of the year.

On a net basis people felt it was a bad time to invest with 31% of people saying it was a bad time to invest compared to 25% who felt it was a good time. People were a little more optimistic about investing in six months’ time which suggested that it is near term factors (of which Brexit is likely to be one) that are really depressing investment sentiment.

Commenting on the February results for the Bank of Ireland/ESRI Investment Index, Tom McCabe, Bank of Ireland Investment Markets said, "The improvement in peoples’ outlook for the savings environment was the key takeaway from the gain in saving sentiment in February. 1 in 2 people are saving regularly and the proportion of people who say they are saving more than they think they should is increasing, at a time when deposit rates remain very low."

He added, "These responses possibly reflect the growing risk of a disruptive Brexit and the likely short term difficulties this could cause to the Irish economy. In short it seems that uncertainty around the UK’s departure from the EU is leading to greater precautionary saving ahead of a possible no deal Brexit."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

More articles from Financial

image Description

Master International Business Transactions with These Top Payment Systems!

Read more
image Description

Ireland was fastest growing economy in Europe in 2022

Read more
image Description

Irish budget position was strongest in euro area

Read more
image Description

6 in 10 Irish consumers have no extra money left at the end of the month

Read more
image Description

Inflation is the number one concern amongst Irish consumers

Read more