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The money market witnessed another uneventful week with minimal fluctuations in interbank rates, G-bond yields, and the USDVND exchange rate. Although this week marked the beginning of a wave of T-bill maturities, the overnight (ON) interbank rate experienced a slight decline. Banks tend to refrain from reinvesting the maturing T-bills, leading to soft liquidity pressure in the upcoming weeks. Turning to the FX market, the exchange rate remained steady, supported by a strong trade surplus despite a notable recovery in DXY. The stability in the FX market will provide SBV with room to implement future easing measures.

The liquidity condition generally improves after the holiday with lower interest rates for short-term loans and increased traded value, and G-bond yields tend to reduce for first and second markets. The development in the money market continues to reflect the government’s efforts in promoting credit activities to support domestic enterprises after the economy experienced a depressed performance in the first quarter. Furthermore, USDVND remains stable in the late phase of the Fed's rate hike, providing Vietnam’s monetary authority more confidence to follow easing decisions.

Vietnam's money market this week shows a modest but implicit move even just with two trading days. On one hand, interbank rates tend to increase when the liquidity condition seems to need more time to stabilize after a long holiday. On the other hand, USDVND is flat although one more 25bps increase in the Fed fund rate was released. Furthermore, the 10-year G-bond yield declined for the fourth consecutive week although. Therefore, we predict that participants might await more easing signals from the monetary authority after a depressed set of economic indicators for April.

Liquidity pressure in the money market cooled down this week when the short-term mismatch in the TGA auction was partly resolved. On the other hand, 10-year G-bond yield and average deposit rates from SOBs were mainly unchanged after reducing significantly a few weeks ago, implying that the impact of recent policy rate cuts was fading and market participants likely await more signals from Vietnam’s central bank. Besides, USDVND has rebounded slightly when hitting SBV’s buying level.

The money market is in the early stage of the potential reversal of the first lending market after two rounds of policy rate cuts SBV delivered in March-mid. Accordingly, deposit rates have declined for mid-term tenors (from one month to below six months). This development could facilitate commercial banks to lower lending rates, causing lending activities to improve next month. As per liquidity condition, the overnight interbank rate surged this week, likely attributed to the potential mismatch between depositors and banks in the first stage of interest rate reversal and increasing demand for reserves in the upcoming long holiday.

The money market this week continued to incorporate SBV’s recent pivot in monetary stance. Funding costs for interbank loans remain relatively low under the modest growth in the first lending market. More notably, the second round of rate cuts came out after depressing economic release for the first quarter with a focus on lowering deposit rates. In this way, the monetary authority could facilitate commercial banks to reduce lending rates in the first market. Despite a stronger pivot signal, the FX market reacts mildly, providing SBV confidence to follow policies to support economic growth. Therefore, we predict that interest rates in the money market to remain low for the next few weeks

Interest rates in the money market continued to slide for the second week after SBV’s rate cut decision. The overnight interbank rate made another sharp drop this week to hit the year low and even was approaching the ultra-low region in the pandemic. Besides, USDVND remains stable, while the global FX market experienced a stormy week under the banking crisis. We predict funding costs in the money market to be low more when the central bank tends to navigate its monetary tools to support domestic production and economic growth at this time.

This week could provide a turning point in SBV’s monetary management as the central bank released a 100bps rate cut which could trigger a reversal of the interest rate path soon. The decision came out under the context that the global banking turmoil has increased significantly the possibility that Fed would be less hawkish in the March FOMC meeting. Interest rates in the money market responded strongly to SBV’s announcement with significant declines in interbank rates and G-bond yields. This week signals that SBV might switch the aim to economic performance when Fed’s rate hike trajectory could end sooner than expected and economic slowdown looms. Hence, we predict interest rates in the money market to be low in the next coming weeks.

Vietnam’s money market remained stable heading to the release of U.S. CPI next week, a decisive consideration for the Fed’s monetary rate decision in March. Overnight interbank was steady at 6% when SBV withdrew money from its counterparties for the sixth consecutive month under slowing credit activities in the first market. For the next week, we expect that raising concerns about the U.S. banking crisis following SVB’s failure would relieve Fed’s hawkishness and put downward pressure on USDVND.

The money market this week shows us a soft liquidity condition attributable to lower demand for borrowing in the manufacturing and real estate sectors in the first months of 2023. Interest rates dropped notably, especially for short tenors, when SBV offered more T-bill contracts with a reduced winning rate. In addition, the G-bond yield recorded one more week of reduction likely due to the principle of an alternative channel to lending activity. SBV seems to pilot a reduction in funding costs for the money market in its attempt to lower the interest burden for local enterprises. However, a lower overnight rate resulted in a negative spread in interest rates between the local currency and USD, putting more pressure on the stability of foreign exchange in the coming weeks. Therefore, the development of the FX market will hint us SBVs’ stance in the near future.