Banks lower deposit interest to 2.4% per year

Depositing savings for a 1-2 month term at Vietcombank currently only receives an interest rate of 2.4%/year; the 12-month term reached its lowest level in history at 4.8%/year. Many private banks are listed lower than the four largest banks.

Over the past month, Vietcombank has reduced deposit interest rates three times and has the lowest deposit interest rate in the market.

Vietcombank most recently changed the interest rates on deposits on November 30, lowering the rates by 0.2% per year compared to the previous time.

The interest rate on online savings with terms of 1 to 2 months is only 2.4% per year, 2.7% per year for terms of 3 to 5 months, 3.7% per year for terms of 6 to 11 months, and 4.8% per year for terms of 12 to 24 months.

These rates make Vietcombank the bank with the lowest rates on the market right now.

VietinBank, BIDV, and Agribank, the last three banks in the "Big 4" group, had already said they would lower the interest rates on some types of deposits.

VietinBank said on November 29 that saving interest rates would go down by 0.1% to 0.2% per year for some terms. Deposits made online with terms of 1-2 months went down by 0.2%/year to 3%/year, 0.15%/year to 3.3%/year for terms of 3–5 months, and 0.1%/year to 4.3%/year for terms of 6–9 months.

BIDV also reduced 0.1%/year online deposit interest rates for terms from 6–11 months to 4.5%/year and 0.2%/year for online deposits for terms from 12-36 months to 5.3%/year.

At Agribank, online deposit interest rates for 1-2 month terms decreased by 0.2%/year to 3.2%/year; 3-5 month term interest rates were reduced by 0.25%/year to 3.6%/year.

In the private joint-stock commercial banking sector, interest rates were also adjusted to decrease by 0.2-0.4% per year.

Techcombank just said that saving interest rates will go down by 0.1% per year for terms from 6 to 36 months. Because of this, the interest rate for a 1-month term deposit is only 3.25% per year; for a 6-month term, it's 4.65% per year; and for a 12- to 36-month term, it drops 0.2% per year to 4.85% per year.

A number of other banks are also offering savings interest rates that have never been seen before. The best saving rate at big joint-stock commercial banks like VPBank, Sacombank, and others is only 5.4% to 5.9% per year.

According to data from the State Bank (SBV), by the end of November 22, 2023, credit growth for the entire system had only reached 8.21%, far lower than the credit growth rate that the SBV had allocated for the entire system (14.5%).

By the end of September 2023, total deposits into the banking system had reached approximately VND12.680 trillion. This number has increased by nearly 233,000 billion VND compared to the end of August.

From the beginning of the year until now, residential deposits have increased sharply by 9.95%, equivalent to an increase of VND583,000 billion. In particular, people actively deposited money in banks in the first months of the year, when interest rates remained high.

For the corporate sector, the amount of money deposited in the banking system continued to increase sharply in September, with an increase of more than VND217,000 billion in just one month. With the sudden increase in numbers in September, corporate deposits soared to more than VND6.23 million billion, thereby also increasing the amount of deposits in this area by 4.65% compared to the beginning of the year.

Specifically, the overnight lending interest rate decreased from 1.05%/year at the beginning of the month to 0.14%/year on November 30, returning to the lowest area since before the net withdrawal by the State Bank. Similarly, interbank interest rates for terms of 1 week, 2 weeks, and 1 month all decreased sharply.