Cash on deposit in banks covered by the State guarantee in September decreased by 0.5 per cent month-on-month to €153 billion, the Department of Finance has said.

In a statement, the department attributed the fall, some €0.6 billion, to “business as usual outflows” and said the main driver was softer volumes in corporate deposits and “non-bank financial institutional deposit balances in both Ireland and overseas”.

Cumulative deposit growth in the first nine months of the year amounted to €6.3 billion.

“The year-on-year increase is €11.1 billion or some 8 per cent, although the pace of year on year increase has moderated,” the department said.

Deposits in the covered banks have increased by €13 billion since falling to a low point of €140 billion in June 2011.

The Covered Banks are AIB Group (including EBS Building Society), Bank of Ireland Group, Permanent TSB and Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (formerly Anglo Irish Bank).

Bank of Ireland, AIB and Permanent TSB’s reliance on Eurosystem funding, funds from the European Central Bank, fell by 0.4 per cent to €60 billion last month.

The department said this reflected “the continued progress that is being achieved by the banks in terms of deleveraging and deposit gathering”.

Eurosystem funding to the covered banks has fallen by 34 per cent from a peak of €93 billion in January of last year.

Ireland’s share of Eurosystem funding has fallen from a high point of 18.1 per cent in December 2010 to 5 per cent at the end of September.