Hanoi (VNA) - The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has to continuallyinject money to support the liquidity of the banking system as the capitaldemand and interest rates on the interbank market have remained high though theTet (Lunar New Year) holiday has ended.

It was different from previous years when the SBV didn’t need to inject moneyto support the liquidity of commercial banks or even had to withdraw money fromthe banking system when the capital demand was low after Tet.

Specifically, in three consecutive trading sessions of this week, the SBVinjected nearly 13.93 trillion VND into the market through the open marketoperation (OMO) channel. At the session on February 9 alone, seven banksborrowed nearly 7.94 trillion VND from the SBV’s channel.

Due to the poor liquidity, the interbank interest rate has remained high atabove 2 percent per year since the beginning of this week. The rate is evenhigher than that before Tet. Data from the SBV showed the overnight interbankinterest rate jumped to 2.59 percent on February 8, even higher than the 2.53 percenttwo-week rate.

Previously, in the last trading week before Tet when the capital demand duringthe payment season was high, the SBV injected 8.8 trillion VND into the bankingsystem through the OMO channel.

Besides the seasonal factor, the SBV’s injection was in the context of rapidcredit growth in the last months of 2021 and early 2022.

According to the SBV, credit as of January 25, 2022 increased 2.74 percentcompared to the end of 2021. Compared with January of the past ten years, therise was the highest rate. According to experts, the surge was a positivesignal, showing the economy is recovering strongly.

Currently, banks are facing many difficulties in mobilising deposits becauseinterest rates are low while other investment channels such as securities andreal estate are more attractive.

Banks’ financial reports for the fourth quarter of 2021 showed deposits ofindividual customers at many banks such as Sacombank, SeABank, ABBank, NCB,PGBank and Saigonbank declined last year.

To lure depositors, banks, especially private ones, have continually increasedsavings interest rates since this month.

VPBank in early February raised its rates for many terms by 0.7 percentagepoints per year compared to early January 2022. The highest online savingsinterest rate at VPBank is 6.7 percent per year for deposits from 50 billion VNDwith terms from 36 months.

Techcombank has also raised the rates of many terms by 0.4-0.5 percentagepoints per year from February 7, 2022. Accordingly, the highest savingsinterest rate at Techcombank is 5.8 percent per year, up 0.4 percentage pointscompared to the beginning of January 2022. This rate is offered to prioritycustomers depositing Phat Loc savings at the counter on 36-month terms or onlinesavings on the same term./.