When the pandemic hit, Bank Negara cut the Overnight Policy Rate to a record-low 1.75% to keep credit cheap. Fixed deposits track the OPR closely, so the average 6-month FD rate followed it straight down — bad news if you were relying on FD interest for income.
Since then the recovery has been partial. As BNM raised the OPR back to 3.00% between May 2022 and May 2023, the average 6-month rate at commercial banks climbed from a pandemic low of 1.63% to about 2.8% by mid-2023. The July 2025 cut to 2.75% pulled it back down, and the latest 6-month average is 2.29%. Before the pandemic, banks were quoting between about 2.7% and 2.95%.
What it means for your wallet: a 6-month FD today pays more than it did at the 2021 low, but less than it did in mid-2023, and the gap over inflation is still thin. Before you lock up cash, check whether a flexible high-yield savings account or ASNB is paying competitively — and remember that when the OPR falls, FD rates follow it down, as they did after the July 2025 cut. The lesson from this chart is that FD income is a rate-cycle bet, not a fixed promise.