Lending interest rates are under increasing pressure

Deposit rates also increased in the last months of the year. Photo: Internet

Pressure to increase interest rates

According to the survey of interest rates of banks in the early days of September, many banks have adjusted their savings interest rates with a common increase of 0.3-0.6% a year, mainly for 6 and 9-month terms.

In which, Sacombank and MB have had a strong increase to 1%/year for 9-month savings deposits, helping this term interest rate at Sacombank reach 5.7%/year, while MB is 5.6%/year.

In addition, for terms of 24 months, MB increased by 0.95%/year compared to the beginning of August, to 6.7%/year.

MB's 6- and 12-month term savings interest rates also increased by 0.43%/year and 0.53%/year, respectively, to 5.3%/year and 6.1%/year.

Similarly, Sacombank increased interest rates by 0.2%/year with terms of 6, 12 and 24 months to 5.4%/year, 6%/year and 6.4%/year, respectively.

SCB continues to be one of the banks with the highest deposit interest rates in the market, with deposit interest rates at 12, 24 and 36-month terms all listed at 7.3%/year.

Kienlongbank also recorded interest rates up to 7.3%/year for a term of 36 months. CBBank continues to be the bank that pays the highest 12-month deposit interest with 7.45% at the counter and 7.5% for the online channel.

The average market interest rate for a 12-month term is 6.3% at the counter and 6.49% when depositing money online. In addition, many banks also attract depositors with a series of promotions for gifts and prizes.

According to experts, the deposit interest rate is likely to continue to increase due to inflationary pressure as well as to add more capital to meet the capital adequacy ratio (CAR), avoid the imbalance of short-term capital mobilization ratio in medium and long term loans. At the same time, banks raised deposit rates to stimulate people to deposit money in banks when the capital mobilization rate from the beginning of the year until now is much lower than the credit growth rate.

A representative of a commercial bank said that the increase in deposit interest rates was also aimed at preparing capital for loans at the end of the year, especially up to now, banks have been allocated additional credit growth limit (room) by the State Bank (SBV).

Leave room to support businesses

According to the analysis of SSI Securities Company, due to the current high credit-deposit growth gap and deposits from the State Treasury may no longer be abundant, if the public investment begins to be promoted strongly. Therefore, the pressure to increase deposit interest rates in the second half of 2022 is present. Therefore, SSI forecasts that deposit rates may increase by 50-70 basis points after loosening the credit growth limit. For the whole year of 2022, deposit interest rates may increase by 1-1.5%.

With this development, businesses are concerned that lending interest rates are under increasing pressure. Banking-finance expert Dr. Can Van Luc said that lending interest rates are under increasing pressure when interest rates in the international market increase and banks' inputs also increase. However, the increase in loan interest is not expected to be too strong to serve economic recovery.

As for banks, according to Mr. Trinh Bang Vu, Head of Shinhan Bank's Personal Loan Division, the savings interest rates that have been continuously adjusted by banks in recent times have led to an increase in lending rates. Similarly, the representative of OCB forecast that lending interest rates might increase slightly by 0.1-0.2%/year due to stronger pressure from input interest rates. Experts at KB Securities Company (KBSV) forecast that deposit interest rates are likely to increase by 0.5-1%/year, pushing lending rates up by about 0.4-0.7%/year.

Speaking at the Government press conference a few days ago, SBV Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu said that interest rates have increased slightly in both deposits and loans. Deposit interest rates have increased by about 0.25%, lending rates are 0.24%. Currently, the average lending interest rate is 7.9-9.3%/year, including new and old loans. However, the State Bank will continue to direct banks to reserve room to support businesses.