US dollar savings fall

The total volume of individual savings in US dollar during the first 23 days of May saw a fall of 2.89 percent, a phenomenon considered respectively positive signal and in line with the central bank’s tightening interest rate measures in a bid to curb US dollar speculation.

After putting the cap on US dollar deposit rate for institutions at no higher than 1 percent, from May 1, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) started applying the ceiling saving rate in US dollar for individuals at 3 percent instead of the floating saving rate as before. This measure is expected to help relieve the US dollar speculation volume at bank accounts and increase the US dollar supply for the market.

In fact, the dong/US dollar forex rate at commercial banks has constantly decreased during two first weeks of May, even the US dollar buying price sometimes plummeted to below 20,500 dong and selling price at 20,600 dong. Lenders said the US dollar supply is now abundant when both individuals and institutions actively sell US dollar to banks.

After the fluctuation caused by the rumour that the dong interest rate will be adjusted by the middle of May, the forex rate is gradually stabilised. Of which, the interbank forex rate on May 27 announced by the central bank continued to slip 5 dong against the bottom level of 20,568 dong. Commercial banks are trading US dollar below the allowable ceiling level, particularly, Vietnam Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Foreign Trade (Vietcombank-VCB) bought US dollar at 20,510 dong and sold US dollar at 20,610 dong. In the interbank market on May 27, banks made a bid of US dollar at 20,589-20,595 dong, falling 30 dong and continuing to fall another 20 dong by late May 27.

The statistics from the central bank showed the total volume of individual deposits of US dollar till May 23 decreased 2.89 percent. If including the abstract number of forex rate decrease, the total US dollar deposits at banks still saw a fall of nearly 2 percent. According to the General Statistical Office (GSO) the US dollar price index in May continued to fall 0.98 percent after slipping 1.6 percent in April. As usual, banks will convert the total US dollar deposits into the dong when making book settlement, so the US dollar balances will also be affected when the forex rate changes.

Totally in Jan-May, the total capital mobilisations of banks increased 1.48 percent from the end of last year, of which, dong deposit saw a fall of 2.75 percent and US dollar deposit increased 18.84 percent. Regarding the customer segments, the total individual savings in the reported period posted a rise of 11.84 percent, of which, dong savings increased 11.39 percent and US dollar saving increased 8.63 percent.

Meanwhile, the total outstanding loans for the economy increased 6.2 percent or 135.8 trillion dong from the end of last year, of which, credit in dong surged 2.59 percent and credit in US dollar soared 18.9 percent. – Vnexpress

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