Many banks in Vietnam Aug 11 decided to further cut dong and dollar deposit rates, pushing down inter-bank rates to per cent17.5 per cent-18 per cent for dong one-year deposits and 4 per cent-5.7 per cent for dollar deposits as local banks’ liquidity is improved, Vietnamese state media said.
The DongABank took the lead among a series of 15 local banks by cutting 0.22 per cent-1.1 per cent of rates of one-12 month deposits, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said, noting that Navibank has cut rates of VND1 billion deposits to 15 per cent for the third time since the end of July this year.
Meanwhile, the biggest listed bank-ACB-, Agribank, the biggest state-owned bank, and Vietcombank cut dollar and gold deposit rates on the stabilized monetary market, the paper noted.
“Vietnam’s monetary market is stabilizing when the race among local banks to hike deposit rates has stopped, which is a firm foundation for other markets to recover,” Dang Van Thanh, chairman of Sacombank, the second biggest listed bank in Vietnam said.
“Lending rates are dropping and are forecast to continue the trend, which proves improved liquidity among banks and a cash inflow will be injected into the local market as the bills and government bonds local banks and financial institutions have bought will expire from now to the end of the third quarter this year.” Thanh noted.
CEO of Vietcombank Nguyen Phuoc Thanh also attributed to the rate cuts to better liquidity of local banks now.
Prof-PhD Trang Hoang Ngan of the Ho Chi Minh City Economics University said that a package of measures the government of Vietnam adopted in Mar this year demonstrated effectiveness with CPI, trade deficit growth slowed down.
CPI is forecast to jump 26 per cent-27 per cent this year, lower than 30 per cent forecast earlier and the country’s trade deficit is forecast not to surpass US$20 billion, Ngan said.
Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Van Giau told mass media that Vietnam will see forex surplus thanks to overseas remittance forecast at US$8 billion by the end of the year, greenback from FDI disbursement and exports revenues.
The VND/USD rate is forecast to be stabilized, Giau said.
The central bank recently said it has temporarily frozen establishments of new commercial banks. (Youth)
Vietnamese
