To encourage customers to deposit money online amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many banks have raised interest rates for online savings by up to 1.4% higher than over-the-counter deposits.

Customers make transactions at an Eximbank branch. Disparity between online
savings and traditional savings at Eximbank is the highest among banks at 1.4
percentage points per year. (Photo Eximbank)

Short-term interest rates (below six months) are prevalent at 4.3-4.75% per year at most banks and do not differ much from over-the-counter deposits due to the rate cap set by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

However, a few banks have listed lower rates for traditional deposits and offer higher online rates such as Techcombank (up 0.45 percentage points), SeABank (up 0.4 percentage points), ACB (up 0.25 percentage points) and BIDV (up 0.2 percentage points).

The disparity is clearer for terms from six months and above.

Among the Big Four, Vietinbank is offering customers up to 0.3 percentage points per year higher for online savings compared to over-the-counter deposits (depending on term of deposit).

BIDV made a similar move with an increase of 0.2 percentage points for online savings.

Vietcombank and Agribank have yet to announce any changes in their interest rate policies.

Among commercial joint stock banks, Saigon Bank (SCB) and Nam A Bank have launched the highest online saving interest rates for six-month and 12-month terms, between 8.03% and 8.66% per year – 0.9-1.2 percentage points higher than traditional deposits.

Some banks have listed interest rates above 7% per year for six-month terms including OCB, Viet A Bank, Vietbank, PVcomBank, Viet Capital Bank and Eximbank.

Many are offering interest rates from 6.2 to 7% per year such as SeAbank (6.2%), ACB and Maritime Bank (6.7%), VIB and TPBank (6.8%) and Eximbank (7%).

For 6-month terms, Eximbank has the biggest difference between online savings and over-the-counter savings of 1.4 percentage points per year.

Disparity at other banks such as Techcombank, Viet Capital Bank, Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank, TPBank, SeABank and Maritime Bank is between 0.4 and 1.1 percentage points for terms of six months and 12 months.

For 12-month terms, only a few banks have listed interest rates below 7% per year such as Techcombank (6.5%) and Vietcombank (6.6%), while most banks have kept interest rates between 7% to 7.8%.

Interest rates for 18-month terms are similar or slightly higher than 12-month terms. Meanwhile, the majority of banks have maintained or slashed interest rates for longer terms (24 months and 36 months).