Director of  the State Bnak of Vietnam's (SBV) Credit Department Ha Thu Giang said the central bank is maintaining interest rates in order to create favorable conditions for credit institutions to easily access SBV’s capital at reasonable costs.

Giang said before Tet holiday, SBV sent a dispatch to credit institutions, requesting them to continue to implement the PM’s instructions on regulating interest rates, and report the average lending interest rates, as well as gaps between deposit and loan interest rates.

According to SBV Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu, SBV has been implementing comprehensive solutions to help commercial banks provide credit, and create favorable conditions for individuals and businesses to access bank loans.

The central bank has released Directives 01 and 02, and the Action Program No 83 to implement key tasks in 2024, aiming at ensuring capital for the national economy and supporting businesses to access credit for business plans.

The major tasks for SBV in 2024 include regulating interest rates to make them suitable to market performance, macroeconomic conditions, inflation rates and the goals of monetary policy; and encouraging commercial banks to simplify procedures in providing credit and easing black credit.

In the latest move, a series of commercial banks, including GPBank, Eximbank and Techcombank, on February 20 eased their deposit interest rates.

GPBank eased deposit interest rates by 0.3 percentage point applied to all terms of deposits. This was the first interest rate cut of the bank in February. Prior to that, it slashed interest rates twice in January.

With the latest cut, GPBank is offering the interest rates of 2.6 percent per annum for 1-month deposit, 3.1 percent for 2-month, 3.12 percent for 3-month deposits. Meanwhile, it pays 4.45 percent per annum for 6-8-month online deposits.

Eximbank on February 20 lowered its deposit interest rates by another 0.3 percentage point after lowering the rates the day before. Its deposit interest rates are hovering around 3-3.1 percent for 2-3-month deposits.

Meanwhile, Techcombank adjusted interest rates for the third consecutive day on February 20. The bank slashed the interest rates for 6-11-month deposits by another 0.1 percentage point.

As bank deposit interest rates are low, many people have decided to buy gold to hoard instead of depositing idle money at banks.

Huynh Trung Khanh, deputy chair of the Vietnam Gold Business Council, said gold prices rose by 13-14 percent last year, while bank deposit interest rates dropped to 5-6 percent.

Tam An