Banks lower interest rates following SBV’s policy rate cut hinh anh 1Vietcombank cuts its deposit interest rate to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent a year for the three-month term. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – By March 17 noon, most of the commercial banks in Vietnam had lowered their interest rates on savings accounts with terms of less than 6 months after the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) announced its policy rate cut a day earlier.

Vietcombank cut its deposit interest rate to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent a year for the three-month term while those for 1 – 2 month terms and terms of 12 months and longer were kept unchanged at 4.3 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively.

Vietinbank reduced it for terms of three months to less than six months by 0.05 percent to 4.75 percent a year while those for 1 – 3 month terms stayed at 4.3 percent a year.

The rates at Viet Capital Bank dropped to 4.7 percent from 4.85 – 4.9 percent for terms of one month to less than six months. The bank’s highest rate is now 8.5 percent a year for 13 month term.

Sacombank also announced a new rate table, down to 4.3 – 4.7 percent from 4.9 – 5 percent, depending on the maturities ranging from one month to less than six months.

ABC lowered its rate for the three-month term to 4.75 percent, two-month term to 4.55 percent and one-month term to 4.5 percent. Its highest rate of 7.45 percent is applicable to 36-month term deposits.

VIB also cut it by 0.4 percent to 4.6 percent a year for terms of one month to less than six months.

The SBV announced to reduce the ceiling interest rate to 4.75 percent from 5 percent a year for deposits with terms of one month to less than six months and to 0.5 percent from 0.8 percent for less-than-one-month terms, effective from March 17.

The central bank also cut its policy rates in an attempt to support the economy which has been hurt by the COVID-19 outbreak. Accordingly, the benchmark refinance rate was lowered to 5 percent from 6 percent and the discount rate to 3.4 percent from 4 percent.

At the same time, the overnight lending rate in the inter-bank market declined to 6 percent from 7 percent and the open-market-operation (OMO) rate, to 3.5 percent from 4 percent./.
VNA