Deposit, lending rates hiked for non-banks

Bangladesh Bank today hiked the deposit rate for non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) by 57 percentage points to 9.7 percent along with raising the lending rate by 57 percentage points to 12.7 percent.

The banking watchdog shared the information through a circular and the move came a week after hiking the lending rate for banks.

Since July this year, Bangladesh Bank started publishing the six-month moving average rate of treasury bills or SMART, depending on which the lending and deposit rates are fixed.

For October, the SMART is 7.2 percent.

In today's circular, the central bank said an NBFI now can have a margin of 2.5 percentage points with the SMART for collecting deposits and 5.5 percentage points margin for lending.

It means, the highest deposit rate for non-banks will be 9.7 percent and the lending rate can be as high as 12.7 percent.

The previous interest margins were 2 percentage points for deposits and 5 percentage points for lending.

Last year, some non-banks offered giving a maximum of 15 percent interest against their deposit products.

After that, Bangladesh Bank fixed the deposit interest rate at 7 per cent and the lending rate at 11 per cent for the NBFI sector, which came into effect on July 1 of 2022.