<Anchor>



Although the standard interest rate was raised this month as well as last year, interest rates on loans from commercial banks, including mortgage loans, have recently been rather low.



The deposit interest rate is also the same, but reporter Nam Jung-min reports why.



<Reporter>



Cofix, which is the standard for variable interest rates on mortgage loans in the banking sector, fell 0.05 percentage points from a month ago.



It's small, but it's the first decline in 11 months since January of last year, and banks decided to reflect the decline immediately from tomorrow.



Although the Bank of Korea raised its benchmark interest rate for the 7th time in a row, the lending rate actually fell.



At the end of last year, the financial authorities issued an order to refrain from raising interest rates on deposits and savings accounts, and as the bond market stabilized, interest rates on bank debentures also went down.



The fact that the base rate hike was pre-reflected in interest rates also had an impact.



[Hwang Se-woon/Senior Research Fellow, Capital Market Institute: There is a lot of awareness that the base rate hike is nearing the end (there is a lot of awareness). Expectations of how the base rate will move in the future are much more important.

Therefore, the interest rate on loans will drop or decrease slightly.]



Here, financial authorities as well as politicians put pressure on banks with record-high performance, which also lowered lending rates.



Woori Bank lowered the additional interest rate for the bank by up to 0.9% last week, and NH Nonghyup also decided to lower the variable interest rate for the bank by 0.8% each from the 20th.



Although the brakes were placed on the abnormally soaring loan interest rates, consumers who had already taken out high-interest loans and suffered from the interest burden expressed dissatisfaction.



[Kim Deuk-eui/Representative of the Solidarity for Financial Justice: In the meantime, I am indignant at the sight of lowering the loan interest rate while touching the additional interest rate in response to the words of the financial authorities.

What happened in the meantime, wasn't there a bonus party for bank employees?]



Bank deposit interest rates, which had risen to the 5% range, fell to around 4%, and banks said they were also considering raising deposit rates.



(Video coverage: Park Jin-ho, video editing: Kim Ho-jin)