Banks make big hikes to short-term deposit interest rates

A VnExpress survey found that nine out of the country’s 35 commercial banks promptly raised the rates after the central bank increased the cap on interest rates for deposits of up to six months by 1 percentage point to 6%.

BacABank, NCB, LienVietPostBank, SeABank, OCB, Sacombank, VPBank, and VIB increased the rates by 1 percentage point for deposits made at the counter for one to three months.

OceanBank increased the interest on one-month deposits by 1.2 percentage points.

For online deposits, the nine banks hiked the rates by 1-1.1 percentage points.

The lowest rate now among the nine banks for one- and three-month deposits is 5.5% paid by OceanBank.

They even match the six-month deposit interest rate paid by some banks such as ACB and Eximbank, and are higher than those paid by the four state-owned banks, Vietcombank, Agribank, BIDV, and VietinBank, of 4.7-4.8%.

On Tuesday many banks also hiked interest rates for six to 12 month deposits by 0.2-0.95 percentage points, taking the average counter rates for six, nine and 12 months to 6.6%, 6.7% and 7.2%.

The corresponding rates for online deposits are raised to 7%, 7.1% and 7.5% per year.

VietABank leads with 8.7% for online customers for 12 months while SCB pays 8.5%.

The U.S. dollar gained 0.12% Tuesday against the dong to a new high of VND24,888, which means the dong has depreciated by 8.6% so far this year.

The central bank had said the strengthening of the greenback and global inflation have put pressure on domestic interest rates and exchange rates when it hiked its policy rates.

The U.S. has raised its rates five times recently, with more expected during the rest of this year and in 2023.