Seylan Bank
Commercial Bank
Nations Trust Bank
Pan Asia Bank
People's Bank
Hatton National Bank
Sampath Bank
Bank of Ceylon
National Savings BankWhat 30 snapshots tell us about Sri Lankan FD rates
Rate comparison sites almost always show a single frozen moment: the rates as they are today. That is useful when you are about to open a deposit, but it hides the more important question - is the rate you are being offered improving, stalling, or falling behind the rest of the market? Because we have kept a dated record of every rate change we have observed since March 28, 2026, we can answer that directly.
The headline: rates rose, but not evenly
Across the tracked window the average 12-month FD rate rose from 7.64% to 8.67%. That 1.03-percentage-point move is real money: on a deposit of LKR 1,000,000 for one year it is roughly LKR 10,300 in additional gross interest.
The average, though, understates what has happened at the top of the market. The single best available 12-month rate climbed from 8.5% to 10.5% - a 2-point move, roughly double the change in the average. The banks that were already competitive got more competitive.
The finding that matters most: the spread nearly doubled
In Mar 2026, the difference between the highest and lowest 12-month rate we tracked was 1.75 percentage points. Today that spread is 3.25 percentage points. Choosing the wrong bank costs meaningfully more than it did four months ago.
This is the practical takeaway from the whole dataset: the cost of not comparing has gone up. A saver who simply rolled over an existing deposit at their usual bank, without checking the market, is likely further behind the best available rate now than at any point we have measured.
State banks moved slowly, private banks moved fast
Seylan Bank was the most aggressive mover in our data, taking its 12-month rate from 8% to 10.5% (+2.5 points). Private commercial banks broadly led the increases.
The state banks were noticeably more restrained. Bank of Ceylon and National Savings Bank both moved their 12-month rates by half a point over the same window - real, but well behind the market leaders. That is consistent with how these institutions typically behave: with government backing behind them, they do not need to bid as hard for deposits. Savers are effectively being asked to choose between a higher rate and the reassurance of a state balance sheet. A further 3 banks in our data did not change their 12-month rate at all over the entire period.
Shorter tenures closed some of the gap
Longer deposits still pay more, as they almost always do. But the increases were not uniform across tenures - the 6-month and 12-month averages rose more than the 24-month average did over this window. When banks want deposits quickly, they tend to compete hardest on the tenures savers actually use, and that shows up here as the shorter tenures narrowing the gap on the longer ones.
For savers, that weakens the usual assumption that you must lock away money for two years to get a competitive rate. It is worth checking the 12-month rate against the 24-month rate before committing to the longer tenure - use our FD calculator to compare the actual maturity values rather than just the headline percentages.
How this data is collected
Rates are read from official bank rate schedules and recorded with the date observed. Every update is retained rather than overwritten, which is what makes this history possible - the archive is a by-product of maintaining the comparison, not a separate estimate or a modelled series. This page currently draws on 30 dated snapshots covering 9 banks and 4 tenures, and it updates whenever new rates are collected. Our methodology page explains the collection and verification process in more detail.
One honest limitation: this record begins in Mar 2026, so it describes recent movement rather than a long-run rate cycle. It will get more useful with time. Where a bank has revised a rate between our observations, we capture the change at the next reading rather than the exact day the bank made it.
Figures on this page are derived from our own tracked records and are for information only. Rates change without notice - always confirm the current rate directly with the bank before depositing. This is not financial advice.