VIETNAM, June 24 - HÀ NỘI — Private commercial banks have been lifting their deposit rates this month to attract capital and notably, some of them have increased their rates more than twice.

Eximbank has increased rates for deposits of 6-9 months to 4.5 per cent per year, 0.2 percentage points higher.

The bank also increased rates on June 7 and 17. Deposit rates at Eximbank are around 3.5-5.2 per cent per year.

TPBank, NCB and OceanBank also hiked rates twice in June, with increases of 0.2-0.4 percentage points depending on terms.

From the beginning of this month, more than 20 commercial banks have increased deposit rates, of which nine raised rates more than once.

Banks started to raise rates at the end of March and the trend has continued in recent months. However, banks which raise rates are mainly private commercial banks, while the big four including Vietcombank, BIDV, VietinBank and Agribank are still keeping their deposit at record lows.

Statistics of the State Bank of Việt Nam showed that deposits at credit institutions rose by 2.2 per cent to reach an estimated VNĐ6.7 quadrillion by the end of March, although at the time deposit rates were, for most terms, at record lows.

Experts said that deposits at banks increased in the context that other investment channels are considered to be unpredictable, unstable and have low profit prospects.

According to Vietcombank Securities Company, deposits are tending to increase gradually from the bottom. Deposit rates can increase by 0.5-1 percentage points per year, but it will be difficult to see any race for rate hikes in the market. — VNS