Seoul: Banks' loan rates fell in March, data showed Wednesday, as the central bank has been on a monetary easing cycle. The average lending rate of banks applied to new loans came to 4.36 percent last month, down 0.1 percentage point from a month earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

According to Yonhap News Agency, in detail, banks' average lending rate for corporate loans shed 0.11 percentage point to 4.32 percent in March, while their lending rate on household loans inched down 0.01 percentage point to 4.51 percent. The rate that banks pay for deposits also fell 0.13 percentage point to 2.84 percent.

The spread on banks' lending and deposit rates, accordingly, widened to 1.52 percentage points last month from the previous month's 1.49 percentage points, the data showed. Earlier this month, the BOK kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged amid heightened uncertainty from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration's sweeping tariff campaign.

The decision follows a quarter-percentage-point rate cut during the previous meeting in February, which marked the third reduction since October 2024, when the BOK began its monetary easing cycle for the first time since August 2021.