During the year, the third round of deposit interest rate reductions was officially implemented.
After the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China took the lead in announcing the reduction of the RMB savings deposit interest rate, the Agricultural Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Bank of China, the Bank of Communications and the China Merchants Bank also announced the latest RMB savings deposit interest rate.
This concentrated "interest rate cut" is the first time in three months that the national commercial banks lowered the deposit interest rate in early September this year. This round of adjustment is also the third round of "interest rate cuts" in the banking industry in 2023 and the fourth round since September 2022.
The five major state-owned banks and China Merchants Bank have "cut interest rates" on deposits.
In general, the reduction rate of the major banks is consistent, involving the interest rate of fixed deposits and large certificates of deposit of different maturities, the reduction is generally 10bp (basis point bp, 25bp and 30bp), and the deposit period covers one year to five years.
On the afternoon of December 21, the ICBC APP suddenly posted the "Explanation on Adjusting the Interest Rate of RMB Savings Deposits", stating that the listed interest rate of deposits will be lowered from December 22, 2023, mainly involving 3-month, 6-month, one-year, two-year, three-year, five-year time deposits and large-amount certificates of deposit.
On December 22, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Bank of Communications also announced the latest RMB savings deposit interest rates.
Abc. 
China Construction Bank. 
Bank of China. 
Bank of Communications. As of press time, among the six major state-owned banks, the Postal Savings Bank has not yet issued an announcement on the adjustment of RMB deposit interest rates.
In addition, among the joint-stock banks, China Merchants Bank took the lead. On December 22, the listed interest rate of 1-year, 2-year, 3-year and 5-year lump sum deposit and withdrawal time deposits of China Merchants Bank was %. Before that, they were. 25%。Similar to the major banks, the 1-year tenor was reduced by 10bp, and the 2-year, 3-year, and 5-year tenors were reduced by 20bp, 25bp, and 25bp, respectively.
Bank spreads continue to be under pressure.
The fact that national banks have lowered the interest rate on deposits again is a market-oriented adjustment based on their own operating needs in the context of narrowing net interest margins.
At the previous interim results conference of a number of listed banks, many bank executives** net interest margin in the second half of the year was still under pressure to narrow. Against this backdrop, the above statement is seen by the market as a signal that banks will cut deposit rates again.
According to data from the State Administration of Financial Regulation, the net interest margin of commercial banks in the first three quarters was 173%, down 001 percentage point, another record low.
On November 27, the People's Bank of China released the "Report on the Implementation of China's Monetary Policy for the Third Quarter of 2023", which shows that it will continue to give full play to the effectiveness of the reform of the loan market (LPR) and the market-oriented adjustment mechanism of deposit interest rates, promote the reduction of corporate loan interest rates, and stabilize the cost of bank debt.
The latest research report of Minsheng ** pointed out that after calculation, the net interest margin will be reduced or boosted by 3bp, boosting the revenue growth rate by 12 percentage points. The research report believes that the reduction will be carried out before the "good start", and the impact on the bank's debt cost management in 2024 (especially in the first half of the year) may be more significant. At the same time, this move opens up room for LPR interest rate cuts in the first half of 2024, and symmetric rate cuts will have little impact on net interest margins, and are expected to boost economic expectations, which is conducive to bank valuation repair.
Editor-in-charge: Wang Lulu.
Proofreading: Gao Yuan.