Furthermore, given the nature of the crisis, the restrictive measures and the movement limitation, part of the population faced a forced reduction of the consumption, primarily the consumption of different services, which is characteristic for persons with higher income and with greater capacity and propensity to save. Third, given that all future economic flows are determined by the extremely uncertain epidemiological curve, in such an environment, the precaution motive has a great role in the depositors' behavior. The European Commission surveys for both our country and for the countries of the Western Balkans also show that the respondents' perceptions in 2020 and in 2021 are in favor of the view that due to the economic situation in this period, savings are more favorable decision, compared to recent years. At the same time, the surveys of our Statistical Office show a decrease in the utilization of savings as a source of income during 2020. What has been happening to the savings in the banking system in our country from the beginning of the pandemic onwards? The deposit potential is increasing with a relatively solid intensity of over 8% on an annual basis, whereby the dynamics of increase is very similar to that of the period 2018 - 2019. Such dynamics does not resemble a bit the developments during the global financial crisis, when in a short time the deposit growth slowed down, which from around 20%, reduced to around 7% on an annual level.
Second, do the new circumstances change the investment behavior of the population and what consequences may it have on the financial stability? Third, what are the processes that accelerated and surfaced due to the pandemic, and which are also an opportunity for productive use of savings and financial support of sustainable projects by the financial sector? Unlike other crisis episodes, the pandemic has actually increased savings and this process is a global phenomenon. In the developed countries, the estimated excess savings in 2020 was nearly 7% of GDP, showing that savings were higher in the pandemic, than in normal circumstances. In the region of the Western Balkans, the rates of domestic savings measured as the difference between the generated income and the total private sector and government consumption registered a slight decrease of around 3 percentage points of GDP, but in conditions of a strong fiscal consumption for support of the economies. This means that private sector savings, despite the great recession, it is very likely that they remained relatively stable or grew. There are three reasons that contribute to this phenomenon. First, despite the recession, disposable income did not decrease, partially due to the fiscal impulse for support of wages and  1/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  jobs.