Citibank and SC Jeil Bank Also Lower Deposit Interest Rates

Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] Korea Citibank and SC First Bank have lowered interest rates on some deposit products starting from the 8th.

This is due to the Bank of Korea's additional 0.25 percentage point cut in the base interest rate last month. The current base rate is 0.5%, the lowest level ever recorded.

The interest rates on major deposit products of foreign banks have fallen to the 0% range.

Citibank lowered the interest rates on installment savings such as the ‘Citi Plus Account’ and ‘Citi Asset Management Account’ by 0.1% to 0.2% points on the same day.

For the ‘Citi Plus Account,’ new subscribers or those with financial transaction records of 200 million KRW or more previously received an annual interest rate of 1.0%, but from this day forward, 0.8% will be applied. The ‘Citi Asset Management Account’ interest rate for new subscriptions was lowered from 0.4% to 0.3% annually.

SC First Bank also lowered interest rates on some deposit products by 0.3 percentage points starting from the same day. The basic interest rates for ‘First Time Fixed Deposit’ and ‘First Time Savings’ were each reduced from 0.9% to 0.6%, a 0.3 percentage point cut.

The ‘e-Green Save Deposit’ was also lowered by 0.3 percentage points from 1.3% to 1.0% for a 1-year maturity. The ‘Home & Save Deposit’ also dropped from 1.3% to 1.0%.

The move to lower base interest rates among major banks started with KB Kookmin Bank, followed by Hana Bank and the regional bank DGB Daegu Bank. It is expected that commercial banks will continue to lower deposit interest rates in response to further cuts in the Bank of Korea's base rate.

An industry official said, “We are discussing lowering deposit interest rates,” adding, “The timing has not been decided yet.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.