Banks woo customers with higher interest rates

PETALING JAYA: Banks’ savings and deposits campaigns are becoming more attractive with higher interest rates and better benefits as they try to woo more customers.

One of the latest savings campaigns is Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Bhd’s (StanChart) three-month campaign offering interest of 5% per annum on its e$aver and Saadiq$aver-i accounts.

StanChart country head consumer banking Tiew Siew Chuen said given the current market volatility and improving equity environment, many customers were holding more cash in deposits to position their liquid assets to capitalise on opportunities as they arose.

“Malaysia is predominantly a savings market. With the high interest rates that are currently offered, customers would prefer to hold their cash in savings accounts,” she said.

She added that StanChart was a keen participant in the deposits market and would continue to grow this segment of its business.

“We continue to see good growth in total customer deposits over the past three years,” she said.

HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd general manager (personal financial services) Lim Eng Seong said the bank had revised its savings rate three times from January to July in tandem with the hikes in the overnight policy rate.

Lim said savings accounts were popular as it was always advisable to set aside a good amount of cash in an emergency fund.

“Savings accounts are undoubtedly the bread and butter of any financial institution. It is a product which meets the core needs of customers,” he said.

The bank is currently running two deposit campaigns which promote its syariah compliant deposit product, Term Deposit-i.

As part of the campaigns, the bank’s new Premier customers are accorded a 5% per annum rate for a three-month tenure with placement of up to RM100,000.

The bank also provides preferential rates of 2% above board rates for seven major foreign currency deposits as part of its campaign.

With these two campaigns, the bank hopes to boost its local and foreign currency books further.

RHB Banking group’s latest savings promotions is the 6-month Step Rate Fixed Deposits and Selected Multi Currency (Australian dollar and British pound) Term promotion offering interest rates of up to 3.45% and 5.5% per annum respectively.

“We have received overwhelming response. As at July 31, we have exceeded the promotion target of RM300mil,” director of retail banking Renzo Viegas said.

RHB deposit rates range from 2.75% to 3.65% per annum.

Viegas said savings and deposit accounts were critical for a bank’s funding strategies and liquidity management.

“As at July 31, RHB has about 1.8 million account holders and our retail deposits recorded a growth of 5.28% year to date,” he added.

In January, EON Banking group launched the Savers Go Places campaign, a year-long CASA (current account, savings account) deposit campaign.

Customers are invited to open new savings or current accounts with the bank or top-up existing accounts to win quarterly prizes that will take them places, such as a car or holiday package.

To encourage the young to save, bank interest rates for children’s savings account also tend to be higher than normal savings accounts. For example, HSBC pays up to the equivalent of one month fixed deposit rate of about 2.55% per annum on savings accounts for children.

The RHB Junior Savings account and EON Bank’s Smart Junior Account also provide one-month fixed deposit-like savings rate of 2.75% per annum.