State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) made a net cash injection of VND18 trillion (US$792 million) into the economy in the past week.

According to Bao Viet Securities Co (BVSC), SBV pumped VND2.26 trillion through the open-market operations channel while issuing bills worth VND15.91 trillion to support liquidity of the banking system.

The past week also saw the inter-bank rates increase by 0.2 percentage points to 0.35 percentage points for all terms, pushing the overnight rate to 1.01 per cent, the one-week rate to 1.23 per cent and the two-week rate to 1.49 per cent, according to reports from Saigon Securities Incorporate (SSI).

The net cash injection, together with the high inter-bank rate, showed that the liquidity of the banking system was not as good as in the previous weeks, BVSC’s analysts said.

Despite the hike, inter-bank rates were still low compared with the same period of previous years. SSI reports showed that inter-bank rates at all terms at the end of 2017 were roughly 2 percentage points lower against the same period in 2016.

According to SSI, after fluctuations in the first few months of 2017, the liquidity of the monetary market gradually stabilised and maintained at a low level throughout the year, marking a successful year in the central bank’s monetary management policy.

Besides this, the monetary management policy also contributed to stabilising the interest rates listed at commercial banks. The interest rate for one-month deposits by the end of last year declined by 0.5 percentage points against end-2016 to 4.5 per cent, while other rates remained stable. — VNS