China Fund News reporter Zhang Yanbei
A few days ago, a number of banks "cut interest rates".
Small and medium-sized banks from Zhejiang, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Guizhou and other places have issued announcements intensively, announcing that they will cut deposit interest rates from late September. There are a number of specific types of deposits involved in this wave of reductions, ranging from 5 basis points to 50 basis points. From the perspective of the industry, in the context of the pressure on bank interest margins and the decline in loan interest rates, there is still room for bank deposit rates to be lowered in the future.
Small and medium-sized banks have intensively lowered deposit interest rates
A few days ago, a number of small and medium-sized banks issued announcements on official channels, announcing the latest listed interest rates of RMB deposits, and the interest rates of various types of deposit products such as lump sum deposits, lump sum deposits, and lump sum deposits and withdrawals of different maturities are involved.
According to the reporter's incomplete statistics, dozens of urban commercial banks, rural commercial banks, rural credit cooperatives, and village and township banks have announced a reduction in deposit interest rates in this "interest rate cut" action, of which village and township banks are the majority.
Judging from the latest news, on September 20 alone, a number of banks such as Guangxi Wuming Rural Credit Cooperatives and Pubei National Village Bank announced that they would adjust the interest rate of deposit products from September 21.
After the adjustment, the interest rates of Guangxi Wuming Rural Credit Cooperative's six-month, one-year, two-year, three-year and five-year lump sum deposits were 1.7%, 1.8%, 2.1%, 2.6% and 2.6% respectively, compared with the previous interest rates, which decreased by 5 basis points, 25 basis points, 25 basis points, 20 basis points and 30 basis points respectively.
It is worth mentioning that a month ago, on August 21, the bank had just lowered its deposit interest rate, which involved various types of deposits such as demand deposits, time deposits, agreement deposits and call deposits. The adjustment is mainly a further reduction in the interest rate of the whole deposit and withdrawal. Compared with late February this year, the interest rates on the three-year and five-year lump sum deposit and withdrawal time deposits of Guangxi Wuming Rural Credit Cooperatives have both dropped by 60 basis points.
On September 5, the bank adjusted the interest rate of the lump sum deposit and lump sum time deposit product, and on September 21, it mainly adjusted the interest rate of the deposit and withdrawal of the whole deposit, the lump sum deposit and the interest on the principal and withdrawal.
On September 19, Longde Liupanshan Village Bank announced that with reference to the RMB demand deposit interest rate of peers in the region, the listed interest rate of demand deposit will be adjusted from 0.35% to 0.15% from September 21, and the listed interest rate of other maturities will not be adjusted. On July 1, the bank has already lowered interest rates on a number of types of deposits.
On the same day, Yunnan Shiping Beiyin Village Bank announced that it would adjust the listed interest rate of RMB deposits from September 20. In contrast, the interest rates on three-month, six-month, one-year, three-year and five-year fixed deposits were reduced by 15 basis points, 30 basis points, 10 basis points, 25 basis points, 20 basis points and 50 basis points respectively.
On September 18, the Bank of Xinjiang announced that it would adjust the listed interest rate of RMB deposits from September 21. After adjustment, the interest rates of the bank's one-year, two-year, three-year and five-year individual lump sum deposits were 1.95%, 2.05%, 2.25% and 2.25% respectively, down 30 basis points, 40 basis points, 35 basis points and 35 basis points respectively from the previous period. This is also the second time in two months that the Bank of Xinjiang has lowered the deposit rate since July 26.
According to the announcement, the banks that have lowered their deposit interest rates a few days ago include Jiande Rural Commercial Bank, Delong Lipanshan Village Bank, Nanning Wuming Lijiang Village Bank, Gaomi Huimin Village Bank, Renhuai Mengyin Village Bank, etc. Among them, many banks have lowered their deposit interest rates for the second time in six months.
After the adjustment, the gap between the listed interest rates of RMB deposits of small and medium-sized banks and that of large commercial banks has narrowed significantly, but it is still at a slightly high level.
Or it is a continuation of the "wave of interest rate cuts" since August
In the view of industry insiders, the intensive reduction of deposit interest rates by small and medium-sized banks a few days ago may be a continuation of the wave of interest rate cuts since August, indicating that a new round of deposit rate cuts by banks is still continuing.
Following the reduction of RMB deposit interest rates by the six major state-owned commercial banks and 12 national joint-stock banks in July, a number of small and medium-sized banks followed suit in August by lowering the listed interest rates on RMB deposits, including Bank of Shanghai, Bank of Suzhou, Bank of Ningbo, Bank of Xiamen, Bank of Changsha, Bank of Hunan, Bank of Chongqing and many other banks.
Subsequently, many small and medium-sized financial institutions such as urban commercial banks, rural commercial banks, rural cooperative banks, rural credit cooperatives, and village and township banks have followed suit, and some banks have lowered their RMB deposit interest rates since September. According to the monitoring data of Rong 360, in August, the bank lowered the deposit interest rate to the peak, and the 3-year and 5-year fixed deposit listed interest rates of rural commercial banks and village and township banks were reduced even more, and the decline of individual banks reached up to 80 basis points.
"On the whole, the wave of interest rate cuts that started in late September, mainly for small and medium-sized banks such as village and township banks, is still a continuation and supplement to the wave of interest rate cuts that started in August. Compared with large state-owned commercial banks and national joint-stock banks, small and medium-sized banks usually have obvious advantages in deposit interest rates, so they will follow up with interest rate reductions. A banker said, "The measures taken by these banks to lower deposit interest rates are actually made in accordance with the requirements of the national interest rate policy and the self-discipline mechanism for market interest rate pricing, combined with their own actual conditions." ”
What will be the trend of bank deposit rates in the future? Will there be further downward revisions? Many market participants generally believe that there may still be room for deposit rates to be lowered.
Ai Yawen of the Rong 360 Digital Technology Research Institute mentioned in the report that after the state-owned and joint-stock banks lowered the interest rates on listed deposits, most of the city commercial banks also followed suit, reflecting the coordinated actions of the banking industry under the policy guidance and the self-discipline mechanism of market interest rates, which are more sensitive to interest rates. "The central bank has recently cut interest rates more than expected, in the context of low inflation, real interest rates are still at a high level, the cost of physical financing is high, domestic RRR and interest rate cuts are still expected, and there is still room for deposit rates to be lowered."
As for the reasons for the reduction of deposit interest rates, on the one hand, the market interest rate level has fallen as a whole due to the impact of macroeconomic recovery, monetary policy regulation and control, and other factors. On the other hand, the growth rate of social financing demand has slowed down significantly, especially under the influence of factors such as the replacement of residents' stock housing loans, the structure of bank assets has changed.
"The answer may lie in the further compression of the space for deposit and loan spreads. Originally, this gap was the 'gold mine' on which banks depended, but now it seems to be quietly being tightened. An analyst pointed out that the main reason for banks to cut deposit rates is to ease the pressure of narrowing net interest margins, stabilize income levels, and continue to reduce the financing cost of the real economy.
According to the data of the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration, the net interest margin of commercial banks in the second quarter of this year was 1.54%, the same as the first quarter, and it was also the first time since 2022 that it stabilized quarter-on-quarter, but still deviated from the warning level of 1.8%. Against this backdrop, the reduction in deposit rates will help banks reduce the cost of liabilities and ease the pressure on net interest margins.
Editor: Captain
Review: Muyu