Egypt’s two biggest state banks, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr have  said on Monday they are suspending the one-year certificate of deposit which was introduced on March 21 with an exceptionally high yield of 18%.

This certificate was launched shortly after the Central Bank of Egypt hiked benchmark interest rates by 1 percent and depreciated the pound against the U.S. dollar by 14 percent. It was part of state efforts to stabilise the Egyptian pound after the currency depreciation move to try to unlock inflows.

The two banks collected around 755 billion Egyptian pounds ($40.6 billion). The NBE had raised 515 billion pounds, while Banque Misr collected 240 billion pounds from the certificates since March.

However, the two banks have issued another certificate with a fixed return of 14 percent and a maturity of  3 years.

Both banks have now increased the rate on three-year certificates to 14% from 11%.