After Lunar New Year 2025, will deposit interest rates continue to increase?

What will the mobilization interest rate be like in early 2025 after the "wave" of continuous increases that appeared at the end of 2024?

Following the increase at the end of last year, in the first month of 2025, 7 banks increased their deposit interest rates, of which 4 banks listed interest rates above 7%.

According to experts' forecasts, the average deposit interest rate may increase by about 0.5% in 2025, from the current 5.2% to about 5.7%. Meanwhile, the lending interest rate in 2025 will continue to increase but at a low level, not too strong to implement the direction of the Government and the State Bank of Vietnam on reducing the interest rate level to support businesses.

Economist, Associate Professor, Dr. Dinh Trong Thinh, senior lecturer at the Academy of Finance, commented that interest rates in the first quarter of 2025 may only increase slightly or remain the same as before Tet. The reason is that this is the time right after Tet, so the demand for capital is not high.

However, in the following quarters, the mobilization interest rate will tend to increase. The reason is that inflation in 2024 is only 3.63%, the mobilization interest rate must be a positive real interest rate and must be 2.5% above inflation. Therefore, the mobilization interest rate will be around 6%.

In 2024, credit growth will reach 15.08%, the credit growth target for 2025 is 16%. To achieve this credit growth target, banks must also find ways to attract credit, leading to an increase in deposit interest rates to compete among banks.

Interest rates in the first quarter of 2025 may only increase slightly or remain the same as before Tet. (Illustration: Government Newspaper)

Before Tet, people tend to convert money into assets, by buying gold… to stabilize the currency. After Tet, sales are also less due to the holiday mentality in January. "Therefore, there is not much money deposited or temporarily deposited in banks for circulation, so banks also need to increase deposit interest rates to attract more cash flow." Mr. Thinh analyzed.

Meanwhile, experts from Vietcombank Securities Company (VCBS) predict that interest rates for medium and long-term deposits will increase slightly by 0.2 - 0.3 percentage points by the end of 2024, then remain stable in 2025. Lending interest rates may increase by 0.5 - 0.7% when credit demand increases thanks to economic recovery, especially when businesses begin to expand production and business activities after the period affected by the pandemic.

VCBS believes that the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) will continue to maintain a flexible monetary policy to support economic growth while controlling inflation well. Factors such as fiscal policy, fluctuating raw material prices and the speed of global economic recovery will be the main factors affecting interest rates in 2025.

Previously, the State Bank of Vietnam said that by the end of 2024, the deposit interest rate increased by 0.71%, the lending interest rate decreased by 0.59% compared to the beginning of the year, and the lending interest rate at commercial banks alone decreased by an average of nearly 1%.

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