Reuters’ Nov. 9 exclusive is the only direct report located on the latest bank-by-bank increases. A bounded search of publisher and official imagery found no reusable photograph of the rate changes; Reuters’ dollar-yuan illustration carried a purchase-rights notice. It cites more than six anonymous bankers; the precise product schedules were not publicly available for independent checking. Reuters could not establish whether policymakers directed the moves, and the People’s Bank of China did not respond; no official instruction or bank-by-bank public rate card was located. The two photographs are dated archive context, not images of the reported rate changes or of banks identified by Reuters: an ATM at Bank of China’s Qiushi Road site in Hangzhou, Aug. 5, 2017 (Alexmar983, CC BY-SA 4.0), and the China Merchants Bank building in Shanghai, Jan. 14, 2014 (Livelikerw, CC BY-SA 3.0). Full-resolution original JPEGs are retained in public/newsroom/source-originals/china-usd-deposit-rates-20261109/ in the source for rights documentation; the deployable lead and inline WebP derivatives are in public/newsroom/china-usd-deposit-rates-20261109/. Derivatives were proportionally resized to 1,000 pixels wide and converted to WebP at quality 78 with metadata stripped; no crop or content retouching. Captions identify their dates and archive status.
Rates vary by lender and balance
More than six Chinese lenders — state-owned, joint-stock and foreign banks — have raised rates on U.S.-dollar deposits in recent weeks, Reuters reported Monday, citing bankers at those institutions. The bankers said the offers had reached levels not seen since at least 2023. Their accounts describe a set of bank products, not a single nationwide rate.
At one state bank, a deposit offer reached 4.5% in late October, up about 80 basis points over recent months, one source told Reuters. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. At another state lender, one-year dollar deposits above $50,000 were paying more than 4% after two increases in two weeks, according to a person with direct knowledge. The terms, qualifying balances and rates differ by institution.
A separate source said a third state lender offered to match the secured overnight financing rate, then 3.97%, for some of its most creditworthy dollar clients. That is a product-specific offer, not a rate available to every depositor.
A stronger yuan changes exporters’ choices
The reported moves arrive after the yuan gained about 10% against the dollar since early 2025 and reached 6.6449 per dollar last week, a four-year high, Reuters said. Exporters receiving dollars can hold those receipts or convert them into yuan to meet local costs. Higher interest on dollar balances can make delaying that conversion more attractive, although the size of any currency-market effect is not established.
Two people at separate banks told Reuters that exporters and retail customers were using the higher-rate offers to place deposits. ING Greater China chief economist Lynn Song said higher dollar rates may help retain dollar deposits and could discourage some exporters from converting accumulated dollars into yuan. That is an assessment of a possible effect, not a measured result.
No central-bank instruction has been confirmed
Reuters said the bankers were not told why the rates were being raised. The agency could not determine whether policymakers had directed the changes, and the People’s Bank of China did not respond to its request for comment. The public evidence therefore supports a reported rise in offers at several lenders, but does not establish a coordinated order or official policy objective.
The offers also reflect broader dollar funding conditions, Reuters reported: the Federal Reserve raised its target range by a quarter-point in September to 3.75%–4%. The latest bank figures are not a public, bank-by-bank rate survey, so they do not show how widely the offers are available or how long they will remain in place.
Sources
3 references
- ReutersChinese banks boost dollar deposit rates, sources say, as Beijing seeks to smooth yuan rallyExclusive reporting from bankers at more than six state-owned, joint-stock and foreign lenders. The rates and possible effects are attributed to anonymous sources; Reuters says it could not determine whether policymakers directed the moves and that the PBOC did not respond. · 2026-11-09
- Wikimedia CommonsATM with money Hangzhou Bank of China.jpg — file record and CC BY-SA 4.0 termsPhotograph by Alexmar983 of a Bank of China ATM on Qiushi Road, Hangzhou; the file page identifies the date and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Dated archive context, not evidence about which banks changed rates. · 2017-08-05
- Wikimedia CommonsChina Merchants Bank Building, Shanghai.JPG — file record and CC BY-SA 3.0 termsPhotograph by Livelikerw of the China Merchants Bank building in Shanghai; the file page identifies the date and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Dated archive context, not an image of the banks cited by Reuters. · 2014-01-14
