Sberbank not to lower interest rates

Russian Sberbank is not planning to decrease its deposit interest rates, Gennadiy Melikyan, Deputy Chairman of the bank, said in an interview to journalists today. "There's no point in changing interest rates right now", he stressed. He was quoted as saying that it is due to the persistently low inflation rate, which reached 8.4 percent for the first five months of 2002. "If inflation rate is 0.5 percent a month, we'll raise the question of the interest rates". According to the Deputy Chairman of Sberbank, the interest rates of the bank currently range from 2 percent (for demand deposits) to 18.5 percent. The term of the deposits is up to three years. Additionally, the representative of the Russian Sberbank reported that the bank was considering the possibility of introducing one-year deposits in the near future, since this kind of deposits was virtually not represented in the bank's activity. Most deposits are either short-term, or long-term up to three years.

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