The Novice » Fixed Deposit

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (Dec 2011)

Alvin Lim — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 08:40:37 +0000

My blogs, including this one, has been wiped off in a recent technical glitch faced by my hosting company. They did not have any backup so everything has been deleted.

Fortunately, the CEO tried his best to dig the details from the older servers and managed to restore the data before Nov 2010. Unfortunately, all my blog posts within the 1 year is now gone, forever.

I will cut down more on blogging from now onwards. It’s a very big blow for me and I don’t really have time to set everything up again.

Anyway, since the last post on FD was back in 2010, here’s an updated FD list for December 2011.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	3.05	3.10	3.25	3.35	3.60
Alliance Bank	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.25
AmBank	3.00	3.00	3.15	3.15	3.20
CIMB Bank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
Citibank	2.90	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
Hong Leong Bank	2.90	2.95	2.95	2.95	3.10
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.75	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.15
Maybank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
OCBC Bank (M)	2.85	2.95	3.00	3.00	3.15
Public Bank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
RHB Bank	3.00	3.05	3.20	3.20	3.30
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.95	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.25
The Bank of Nova Scotia	3.05	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.90	2.90	2.95	3.00	3.00
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.90	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.15

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (August 2010)

Alvin Lim — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 09:38:08 +0000

In March 2010, I compiled a list of Fixed Deposit rates in Malaysia HERE. The overnight interest rate has since changed and here’s the updated table.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.80	2.85	3.00	3.05	3.30
Alliance Bank	2.75	2.75	2.90	3.00	3.10
AmBank	2.75	2.75	2.90	3.00	3.10
CIMB Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
Citibank	2.65	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.90
EON Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.85	3.00
Hong Leong Bank	2.65	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.55	2.70	2.70	2.70	2.85
Maybank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
OCBC Bank (M)	2.60	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85
Public Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
RHB Bank	2.75	2.75	2.95	2.95	3.10
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.70	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.65	2.65	2.70	2.75	2.75
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.60	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (March 2010)

Alvin Lim — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:27:05 +0000

In November 2009, I compiled a list of Fixed Deposit rates in Malaysia HERE. Recently, the Central Bank (Bank Negara) has increased the overnight interest rates, and this has caused our country’s FD rates to go up – but not by much.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.25	2.30	2.45	2.50	2.75
Alliance Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.40	2.75
AmBank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
CIMB Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
Citibank	2.25	2.25	2.35	2.35	2.60
EON Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
Hong Leong Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.25	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.60
Maybank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
OCBC Bank (M)	2.25	2.30	2.30	2.30	2.60
Public Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
RHB Bank	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.40	2.60
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (November 09)

Alvin Lim — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:00:45 +0000

In August, I compiled a list of Fixed Deposit rates in Malaysia HERE. Here’s the update for the month of November 2009.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.00	2.10	2.20	2.30	2.50
Alliance Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
AmBank	2.00	2.10	2.20	2.20	2.50
Bangkok Bank	2.00	2.05	2.10	2.20	2.50
CIMB Bank	2.00	2.10	2.10	2.10	2.50
Citibank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
EON Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Hong Leong Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Maybank	2.00	2.10	2.10	2.10	2.50
OCBC Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Public Bank	2.00	2.10	2.10	2.10	2.50
RHB Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50

If you refer to the previous rates in August 2009, you will notice that there’s no change to the rates at all. But many people are saying that our Bank Negara will increase the interest rate soon, considering the fact that our economy is slowly recovering. I’ll post up an update to this list of FD rates once there’s any changes to the interest rate.

Hope it helps.

Is it still worth it to put your money into Fixed Deposits?

Alvin Lim — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:11:49 +0000

In my recent post about Fixed Deposit (FD) rates in Malaysia, I couldn’t help but noticed that the rates are pretty similar from one bank to the other. All of them have very very low rates ranging from 2% to 2.5%.

So for example, you put in RM 5000, which is the minimum required for a 1 month FD placement. At an interest rate of 2%, you will only get RM 8.33 ( RM 100 / 12 ) per month. Quite pathetic. One can easily generate that much income if he or she is hardworking enough to write online articles.

Our FD interest rates are looking like this nowadays

That is why I don’t suggest people to invest in FD unless it’s their emergency fund (which you can withdraw easily and without penalty). For those who have extra money on their hands, try look into unit trusts since most of them are very cheap now but I would suggest you to look into bond and not equity. The equity market will only recover towards the end of 2009 or 2010 (my prediction), and that is quite a longggg time from now.

If you’re not interested in that, take a look at some defensive stocks such as Public Bank, F & N, Telekom Malaysia (TM) and others. These companies give a steady dividend yield to the shareholders and most of them are at a very attractive price now (TM is trading at a PE ratio of 4 – 5 while Public Bank’s PE is around 7 – . However, as with most investments nowadays, you must be willing to hold on for at least 1 year.

To conclude, if given a choice, I will not put my extra money into FD anymore due to the extremely pathetic interest rate. It’ll be better to put into unit trusts or defensive stocks. Or if you know about government bonds, then try to invest in those.

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (March 09)

Alvin Lim — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:54:13 +0000

In January, I posted a post on the Fixed Deposit rates of the major banks in Malaysia HERE. Since then, our Bank Negara (Central Bank) has reduced the interest rates twice. Thus the changes are quite major.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.00	2.10	2.20	2.30	2.50
Alliance Bank	2.00	2.00	1.90	1.90	2.50
AmBank	2.00	2.10	2.20	2.25	2.50
Bangkok Bank	2.50	2.55	2.60	2.70	3.00
Bank of China (M)	3.00	3.00	3.05	3.05	3.50
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.70
CIMB Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Citibank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Deutsche Bank (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50
EON Bank	2.50	2.50	2.50	2.50	3.00
Hong Leong Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Maybank	2.00	2.10	2.10	2.10	2.50
OCBC Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Public Bank	2.00	2.10	2.10	2.10	2.50
RHB Bank	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.50

NOTE: Those highlighted in BLUE might not be the latest rates since there’s no update since the last BLR cut. As for those in RED, I couldn’t find out about the rates at all from the Internet. If you’re interested in those banks, it’s better for you to call them up and ask.

As you can see here, the interest rates are really really really low. It’s no longer worth it to keep our money in FD and I think that is exactly what are government is trying to do – to prevent us from saving up, and encourage us to spend. This is quite a risky move and it might backfire.

For me, I will only keep my emergency fund in FD while majority of my investments will be in unit trust and stock market. The % is just too low to be kept in FD. Our inflation rate is actually higher than that.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (Jan 09)

Alvin Lim — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:09:39 +0000

I’ve posted 2 articles on the Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of the banks in Malaysia before – Fixed Deposit rates of different local banks and List of Fixed Deposit rates for foreign banks.

I figure that this topic is quite important so I’ve decided to continue posting updates on the FD rates of the banks in Malaysia. From now onwards, I will come out with an update of list of FD rates at least once in every 2 months. I will also post an update if there’s any significant changes made by Bank Negara such as lowering the Base Lending Rate (BLR).

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	3.00	3.05	3.15	3.20	3.50
Alliance Bank	3.10	3.15	3.15	3.20	3.50
AmBank	3.00	3.15	3.25	3.30	3.50
Bangkok Bank	3.20	3.30	3.40	3.50	3.75
Bank of China (M)	3.00	3.00	3.05	3.05	3.50
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.70
CIMB Bank	3.00	3.10	3.30	3.30	3.50
Citibank	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.15	3.50
Deutsche Bank (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50
EON Bank	3.00	3.00	3.15	3.20	3.50
Hong Leong Bank	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.40	3.50
HSBC Bank Malaysia	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50
Maybank	3.00	3.20	3.40	3.50	3.70
OCBC Bank (M)	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.50
Public Bank	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.50
RHB Bank	3.10	3.10	3.15	3.15	3.50
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50
The Bank of Nova Scotia	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.50
The Royal Bank of Scotland	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50
United Overseas Bank (M)	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.50

NOTE: Those highlighted in BLUE might not be the latest rates because I’m not able to access their web sites properly. The above interest rates have been obtained from other sources. Also, the rates above might change anytime so if you want to know the actual interest rates, it is better to consult the respective banks directly.

Hope it helps. I’ll come out with an updated list 2 months later.

List of Fixed Deposit rates for foreign banks

Alvin Lim — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:38:25 +0000

I did an overview of the Fixed Deposit (FD) rates for local banks before this. You can check it out here – Fixed Deposit rates of different local banks.

In this post, I will give an overview on the rates for some of the more popular foreign banks in Malaysia namely Citibank, HSBC, United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Standard Chartered. OCBC is having a promotion and I could not find their standard rates. You can check out OCBC’s promotion for FD rate HERE.

	Citibank	HSBC	UOB	Standard Chart.
1	3.00	3.00	3.05	3.00
2	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.00
3	3.00	3.00	3.18	3.00
4	3.00	3.00	3.18	3.00
5	3.00	3.00	3.18	3.00
6	3.10	3.00	3.38	3.00
7	3.10	3.05	3.38	3.00
8	3.10	3.05	3.38	3.00
9	3.15	3.05	3.50	3.00
10	3.15	3.05	3.50	3.00
11	3.15	3.05	3.50	3.00
12	3.70 (< 1mil) or 3.30 (> 1 mil)	3.70	3.70	3.70

Like the previous article, this one does not include the special promotions. It is only a basic overview. For more information, it’s better to refer to the links above.

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit rates of different local banks

Alvin Lim — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:46:39 +0000

If you’re not someone who can stand looking at your money being burned away, then don’t ever step into stock investing. It’s a very risky business. And you might want to reconsider your mutual fund option as well since the return is low and the risk is still there, especially with the current market condition.

So you’re left with not much choice. One of them is definitely the safest of them all – Fixed Deposit (FD). Let’s look at the FD interest rates offered by our local banks. To be honest, the difference is not that significant.

	Affin	Alliance	AmBank	CIMB	EON	HLB (min 5k)	Maybank	Public Bank	RHB
1	3.10	3.10	3.10	3.15	3.10	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.10
2	3.20	3.10	3.20	3.25	3.10	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.10
3	3.20	3.10	3.25	3.30	3.25	3.00	3.20	3.15	3.10
4	3.20	3.30	3.25	3.30	3.25	3.00	3.20	3.15	3.20
5	3.20	3.30	3.25	3.30	3.25	3.00	3.20	3.15	3.20
6	3.40	3.50	3.40	3.40	3.50	3.10	3.40	3.35	3.50
7	3.50	3.50	3.40	3.40	3.50	3.10	3.40	3.35	3.50
8	3.50	3.50	3.40	3.40	3.50	3.20	3.40	3.35	3.50
9	3.50	3.60	3.50	3.50	3.60	3.60	3.50	3.35	3.50
10	3.50	3.60	3.50	3.50	3.60	3.60	3.50	3.35	3.50
11	3.50	3.60	3.50	3.50	3.60	3.60	3.50	3.35	3.50
12	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70	3.70
24	n/a	Neg.	3.70	3.50	3.85	Neg.	3.70	Neg.	3.70*
36	n/a	Neg.	3.75	3.60	3.90	Neg.	3.75	Neg.	3.70*
48	n/a	Neg.	3.80	3.70	4.00	Neg.	3.75	Neg.	3.70*
60	n/a	Neg.	3.90	3.80	4.00	Neg.	3.80	Neg.	3.70*

Hope it helps. I’ll post up another one on FD Rates for foreign banks.

By the way, there are 2 “predictions” going on. Some say that the FD rate will go up since depression is coming (should hit us hard in 2009) and the banks will be without much money…so they have to rely on us to get the money. However, there are also some saying that the central bank and the government want to increase consumer expenditures, thus will lower down the interest rates. In the end, it’s your call. I would think the first one is more realistic.