The last months of the year are considered as the peak season of businesses, whereby banks will boost capital promotion to meet the increasing credit demand. Observation on the market shows that the traditional savings interest rates in October, especially for terms of more than one year, are kept at high levels of up to nine percent per annum to attract idle capital from people.
On term of 13 months, according to the survey results of 26 domestic banks, some banks offer high interest rates based on the deposit balances to encourage customers to deposit more. For example, Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) lists the highest rate of nine percent per annum for customers depositing from 500 billion dong at the counter. Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) applies interest rate of 8.4 percent per annum for deposits from 100 billion dong and more. Customers of Lien Viet Post Commercial Joint Stock Bank (LienVietPostBank) and Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) depositing from 300 billion dong and more can enjoy rate of eight percent per annum. In addition, some other banks are willing to pay savings rate of eight percent or more (interest paid at maturity) without no conditions, such as An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ABBank, 8.3 percent per annum), Nam A Commercial Joint Stock Bank (NamABank, 8.3 percent per annum), National Citizen Commercial Joint Stock Bank (NCB, eight percent per annum), etc.
Meanwhile, for terms of 18 months and 24 months, most banks offer rates of above seven percent per annum. The group of banks pays the highest rates including NamABank (8.5 percent per annum for both terms), Eximbank (8.3 percent per annum for 18-month term, and 8.4 percent per annum for 24-month term), Vietnam Prosperity Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VPBank, eight percent for deposits from five billion dong and more).
Notably, many banks are not interested in the savings on these two relatively long terms when applying significantly lower rates than the 13-month term. For example, HCM City Development Commercial Joint Stock Bank (HDBank) pays 7.4 percent per annum rate for 13-month term, but only seven percent per annum for 24-month term. Similarly, Ocean Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OceanBank) applies 13-month and 18-month terms at respectively 7.5 percent and 7.2 percent per annum. The largest interest rate gap reaches up to 0.9 percent per annum at ABBank as the bank applies 13-month deposit rate at 8.3 percent while 18-month to 24-month rates are offered at only 7.4 percent per annum.
For 36-month, NamABank continues to be the leader in the mobilisation race with interest rate of 8.7 percent per annum, followed by Eximbank (8.4 percent per annum) and Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB, eight percent per annum). Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Industry and Trade of Vietnam (VietinBank, Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) list the lowest deposit rates, all the rates are below seven percent per annum.
On longer terms, banks tend to keep the rates the same as 36-month term with insignificant difference except LienVietPostBank which applies eight percent per annum, much higher than the 7.4 percent percent on 36-month term. In contrast, Eximbank only pays six percent per annum for savings deposits on 60 months, while it offers fairly high 24-month and 36-month rates of 8.4 percent per annum.
According to banking experts, banks’ acceleration of capital mobilisation is firstly to meet the credit demand which is forecasted to sharply rise in the end of the year, and secondly to meet the requirement of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to reduce the ratio of using short-term funds for medium and long-term lending. Therefore, the pressure to increase deposit rates will be higher on long terms.
As for depositors, while there are various instabilities in the world economy, and securities and real estate investment channels remain uncertain, savingsparticularly on long terms at the present time is considered the safest and most effective investment channel.
