China's largest banks cut deposit rates in bid to boost growth

'Big four'

China’s largest state-owned banks have cut deposit rates for the third time this year, in a bid to boost growth in the country.

The four largest banks in China, which include the Bank of China and China Construction Bank, all cut their deposit rates today (22 December). The ‘big four' reduced their one-year deposit rates by 10bps to 1.45% and three-year rates were cut by 25bps to 1.95%, their lowest levels since 1996. This lowers to cost of funding for banks, allowing them to improve their profit margins as local banks suffer from turmoil in the property sector and local government budgets. Moody's downgrades China sovereign credit outlook to negative Today's cuts followed similar declines in June and Se...