Though Tet (Lunar New Year) is approaching with rising capital demands, the liquidity of the banking system is abundant, helping interest rates in the inter-bank market sharply, industry insiders said.
Interest rates in the inter-bank market are declining in contrast to previous years when the rate often increased significantly due to rising capital demand at year-end.
The foreign exchange market is witnessing an unusual phenomenon: the dong is not just steady against the US dollar but also 0.16 per cent up from its rate at the end of late 2018.
The Government’s efforts to boost cashless payment have shown signs of paying off, with both the number of transactions and their total value seeing double-digit growth in the first months of the year.
Inter-bank electronic payment turnover accelerated to VND73 quadrillion (US$3.2 trillion) in 2018, equal to 13 times the country’s GDP, according to Pham Tien Dung, director of the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV)’s Payment Department.
Interest rates on the inter-bank market have surged strongly in the past week despite the central bank’s net injection of VND14.4 trillion (US$612.76 million).
Interest rates in inter-bank and G-bond markets have declined significantly despite rising capital demands ahead of Tet (Lunar New Year), the country’s biggest holiday season.
Inter-bank lending interest rates have continuously slipped to hit a new record low, according to the latest monetary report by Saigon Securities Incorporation’s (SSI) Retail Research.
The lending interest rate is expected to further expand with the interest rate reducing sharply in the inter-bank, central bank bill and G-bond markets over the past ten days.