The only one out of the Big 4 banks, Vietinbank, has just adjusted its upward savings interest rates for individual customers with deposits of VND 300 million or more.
According to that, if depositing from VND 300 million to less than VND 1 billion for terms of 1-12 months and from 24 months onwards, individual customers will receive an additional 0.2% interest rate.
Specifically, for the term of 1-2 months, customers will receive an increased interest rate of 1.9%/year; 3-5 months will increase to 2.2%/year; for the term of 6-10 months, the interest rate will be 3.2%/year; the 11-month term will receive an increased interest rate of 4.5%/year.
Savings cash flow is being withdrawn from the banking system, so many banks have started to raise deposit interest rates.
For a term of 12 months to less than 24 months, VietinBank’s savings interest rate is kept the same at 4.7%/year. Notably, interest rates for terms of 24-36 months at this bank have been increased back to 5%/year.
For customers with deposits of VND 1 billion or more, the savings interest rate is increased by 0.4 percentage points.
Accordingly, the savings interest rate for the term of 1-2 months increases to 2.1%/year; the term of 3-5 months is 2.4%/year; the savings interest rate for the term of 6-10 months is 3.4%/year.
From terms of 11-36 months, VietinBank’s savings interest rates are applied similarly to customers with deposits of VND 300 million or more.
After this adjustment, VietinBank’s interest rate is currently higher than the other 3 banks, Vietcombank, BIDV, and Agribank.
Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) has also just announced a new interest rate schedule with an increase in 1-month term deposit interest rates by 0.1% to 2.6%/year. This is also the only term adjusted by VIB this time. Previously, 6 banks had increased deposit interest rates since the beginning of April.
Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) recently announced a new deposit interest rate schedule, effective from April 10. Accordingly, this bank increased the deposit interest rate for terms of 12-36 months by 0.3%. This is the second time VPBank has raised deposit interest rates within the past half month.
In addition, the small Kien Long Commercial Joint Stock Bank (KienLong Bank) also announced an increase of 0.2% in interest rates for deposits with terms of 6 – 36 months from April 10; NCB Joint Stock Commercial Bank increased deposit interest rates by 0.1 – 0.2% for terms of 4 and 5 months.
Vietnam Export-Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) increased its new deposit interest rate for terms of 6 – 9 months by 0.2%, reaching 4.1%/year; Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB) increased deposit interest rates for terms of 6 – 11 months by 0.2%, to 4.1%/year. Online deposit interest rates for terms of 12 – 36 months were also increased by MSB by 0.2% to 4.5%/year; Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank) adjusted the savings interest rate by 0.2% for terms of 12-18 months.
According to experts, the move to increase savings interest rates comes from the fact that a large amount of savings after the maturity date of 5-6%/year is now due to expire and is not intended to return. The main reason is that the current mobilization level is considered the lowest in the past 20 years.
Newly released data from the General Statistics Office also shows that, as of March 25, capital mobilization by credit institutions decreased by 0.76% compared to the end of 2023, while in the same period last year it increased by nearly 1.2%. Meanwhile, on the output side, after two months of negative growth, credit to the economy has increased again as of the end of the first quarter.
According to the monetary macroeconomics report for April, the research arm of WiGroup assessed that deposit interest rates mobilized by commercial banks remain around the bottom. While the State Bank group continues to reduce interest rates, some private banks have started to increase deposit interest rates.
WiGroup assessed that the main reason for the increase in interest rates is partly due to the fact that bank deposits are showing a downward trend (-0.76%), while credit is starting to grow positively (0.6%). As such, the room for banks to reduce deposit interest rates will not be much. This is also an early signal that deposit interest rates are approaching “bottoming out”. This is also in line with the trend of slow credit growth.
As of March 25, credit growth reached 0.26%, although this figure is lower than the same period last year, it shows an improvement in credit after the first two months of the year decreased. This signal also reflects the recovery of lending activities in the economy, despite the fact that credit growth in the first two months of 2024 was recorded at a quite low level, or even negative at many large banks.
