The Novice » Fixed Deposit

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

Alvin Lim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:00:58 +0000

In March, I wrote a post on the Fixed Deposit rates of the major banks in Malaysia HERE. Not much change since then. Here’s the update for the month of August 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

There’s not much change to the interest rates of most banks. Most of them have the standard 2.0% for 1-11 months, and 2.50% for 12 months FD. The good thing is major banks like CIMB, Maybank, Public Bank and Ambank are giving pretty good FD rates as compared to the international banks. Most of our accounts are in there anyway. And if you are looking to invest for anything less than a year, I guess the best is Affin even though it is not as accessible as other local banks (not as many branches around).

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.