Total deposits held by banks and credit unions grew modestly in April as business customers, councils, government agencies and community organisations withdrew more than A$9 billion from the banking system. The four major banks each experienced net outflows of deposits from the public sector entities after they collectively withdrew almost $6 billion from bank accounts over the month. NAB and Westpac suffered the biggest outflows of government money – more than $2 billion each. CBA, the country’s largest banker to the public sector, suffered a $437 million net outflow of government deposits. The government sector had $122 billion deposited in the banking system at the end of April compared to $127.9 billion at the end of March. There was also a system-wide decline in deposits from large corporations and small businesses in April. The business sector had $793.6 billion held at banks on 30 April, which was around $2.6 billion less than the previous month. Aggregate balances from the community service sector, which includes charities and most other not-for-profit entities, also reduced after net withdrawals of more than $500 million from the banking system. Deposits sourced from community organisations have consistently declined this year as public demand for charitable support appears to have intensified. Despite the net outflow of deposits from the forementioned customer segments, total system deposits held at Australian banks grew marginally in April as super funds, insurers and the household sector pumped an additional $12 billion into savings and term deposit accounts. Total deposits held at all Australian banks stood at $2.8 trillion on 30 April – up $2.8 billion or 0.1 per cent. Retail depositors increased their money held at banks by more than $6 billion.While Westpac boosted its retail deposits by more than $2 billion, it was not sufficient to offset the net outflow from other customer groups. Westpac’s total deposit base fell $784 million to $536.4 billion in the 30-day period. The tale was similar for ANZ, which grew household deposits by $800 million, but finished the month with lower total deposits as balances on business accounts reduced by $1.5 billion. However, CBA and NAB managed to expand their aggregate deposit bases. CBA grew total deposits by $3.1 billion to $713 billion, while NAB expanded total deposit balances by $1.6 billion to $482.7 billion. Macquarie grew its aggregate deposit base by slightly more than $600 million to $137.3 billion, but retail depositors only added $32 million to their account balances. Most of Macquarie’s deposit growth during the month was attributable to institutional money. Super funds and other financial institutions boosted the cash held at the bank by more than $520 million. Macquarie also managed to expand deposits sourced from business customers by $70 million.