Several banks have decided to lower their deposit interest rates though the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has kept its cap unchanged at 7.5 percent.

On May 6, the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, or Vietcombank, suddenly cut its rates.

Some major banks like BIDV and Vietinbank followed suit, also trimming their rates.

BIDV cut the annual interest rate to 6 percent for one-month and 6.5 percent for two-month deposits.

Vietinbank cut the annual rates on all deposits of less than 12 months by 0.5 percentage point to 7 percent.

But when Agribank decided to sharply cut the rate on one-month deposits to 5 percent, a record low rate, the floodgates truly opened and the rest of the major banks followed.

Techcombank trimmed all its deposit interest rates, with the lowest level being 6.85 percent.

Asia Commercial Bank has announced new rates of 7.2-7.3 percent for less- than-one-year deposits, depending on the term.

After the adjustments, their average deposit rates are now 0.65 percent lower than the central bank’s 7.5 percent cap, analysts said.

The country’s four state owned giants - Vietcombank, Agribank, Vietinbank, and BIDV - on May 13 cut their lending interest rate to 13 percent per year and for loans in the five priority categories, to 10 percent.

The rates were 13 percent and 15 percent respectively before the cuts.-VNA