Checkable deposits saw a significant quarter-on-quarter decline as of the end of March, despite more payment accounts opened in the first three months of this year.

Statistics of the State Bank of Viet Nam showed that checkable deposits at payment accounts of individuals totalled VND476.5 trillion (US$20.5 billion) as of the end of March, nearly VND23.2 trillion lower than the end of 2019, or a quarter-on-quarter drop of 4.64 per cent.

This was the first drop in checkable deposits after five months of increases. This was also the biggest drop in many years. The most recent drop was in the third quarter of 2018 which saw the checkable deposits fall by VND5.3 trillion.

The number of payment accounts rose from more than 88.5 million at the end of last year to more than 90.8 million as of the end of March, however.

The average balance of payment accounts posted a quarter-on-quarter drop of 7.6 per cent to VND5.25 million at the end of March, after increasing consecutively from VND4.76 million in 2018.

Statistics of 22 banks which announced Q1 financial reports also showed that deposits at current accounts and savings accounts (CASA), of both individuals and organisations, fell by 11 per cent to VND113 trillion.

According to the central bank, the drop in checkable deposits was partly caused by enterprises’ withdrawal of cash in the first months of this year.

Statistics showed that the deposit of economic organisations fell by more than 4.8 per cent, or VND190 trillion to VND3.77 quadrillion as of the end of February.

Deposits of individuals rose by 3.91 per cent to more than VND5 quadrillion. — VNS