Banks cut interest rates on deposits

Commercial banks in the country have reduced the interest rates they offer on customer deposits.

Latest figures released by the Bank of Ghana have shown that the average interest rate customers get on money deposited at banks reached 10.4 per cent in September 2017.

According to the Annual Percentage Rates (APR) and Average Interest (AI) report, the figure is down from the 10.8 per cent recorded in August 2017. The decrease also represents a drop of about 30 per cent for the one month period.

A recent survey which was carried on 31 banks in Ghana showed that Premium Bank topped as the bank with the highest interest on deposits, with an interest rate of 14.8 per cent on customer deposits. This was followed by Omnibank with 14.7 per cent.

Royal Bank and Bank of Baroda placed third with 14.5 per cent interest rates on deposits. Following closely at the fourth and fifth positions are GN Bank and United Bank for Africa which offer interest rates on monies deposited at 13.3 and 13.1 per cent in that order.

At the sixth, seventh and eighth positions were Sovereign Bank, Unibank and Stanbic Bank with interest rates at 12.9 per cent, 12.6 and 12.4 per cent respectively.

Zenith Bank, National Investment Bank and First National Bank placed ninth, 10th and 11th positions with highest interest rates on customer deposits.

Barclays Bank, whose interest is the same as the Industry average of 10.4 per cent, occupied the 13th position. It is followed by Fidelity Bank and BSIC, with interest rates on deposits at 10.1 and 10 per cent respectively.

For the banks with the six lowest interest rates on customer deposits, Standard Chartered Bank tops with interest on deposits at 4.9 per cent. It is followed at the second and third positions by Energy Bank and FBN Bank Ghana with interest of 5.7 and 5.3 per cent respectively.

Moreover, ADB Bank, Universal Merchant Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank give interest rates of 6.2, 6.6 and 7.4 per cent. They occupy the 4th to 6th positions from the bottom.