Savings
UCO Bank FD interest rates, read against Central Bank of India
UCO Bank peaks at 6.60% on 535 days and Central Bank of India at 6.75% on 444. Both are DICGC-insured public sector banks, and neither pays a premium for its size.
On the cards the two banks publish themselves, UCO Bank’s best general rate is 6.60%, paid on a deposit of exactly 535 days; Central Bank of India’s is 6.75%, on exactly 444 days. Both sit on the Reserve Bank’s list of twelve public sector banks, and deposit insurance of ₹5,00,000 per depositor per bank is identical to the cover at State Bank of India — so the safety half of the question is settled before it is asked. The rate question has a less flattering answer than the search implies: UCO’s peak sits exactly at the median of the seven large banks this site tracks.
Both cards were read on 4 September 2026 from the banks’ own domains. Rates change without notice, so this records what each published that day.
UCO Bank’s card of 21 May 2026
UCO publishes a single column for the general customer, covering domestic term deposits below ₹3 crore including NRO deposits, revised with effect from 21 May 2026. There is no senior-citizen column anywhere on the card. It states an additive rule instead — 0.25% up to one year and 0.50% above one year — so the familiar half-point does not apply to the bank’s most-advertised short deposit.
| Maturity period | General customer |
|---|---|
| 7–14 days | 2.90% |
| 15–29 days | 2.90% |
| 30–45 days | 3.00% |
| 46–60 days | 3.50% |
| 61–90 days | 3.50% |
| 91–120 days | 4.25% |
| 121–150 days | 4.25% |
| 151–180 days | 4.75% |
| 181–332 days | 5.00% |
| 333 days | 6.30% |
| 334–364 days | 5.00% |
| 1 year | 6.10% |
| Above 1 year–443 days | 6.10% |
| 444 days | 6.45% |
| 445–534 days | 6.10% |
| 535 days | 6.60% |
| 536 days–2 years | 6.10% |
| Above 2 years–999 days | 6.00% |
| 1000 days (Green Deposit) | 6.20% |
| 1001 days–3 years | 6.00% |
| Above 3–5 years | 6.00% |
| Above 5 years–1999 days | 6.00% |
| 2000 days (Green Deposit) | 6.20% |
| 2001–2999 days | 6.00% |
| 3000 days (Green Deposit) | 6.20% |
| Above 3000 days | 6.00% |
Six of those twenty-six rows price a single named number of days. Every rate above 6.10% belongs to a scheme with its own sheet and its own minimum: UCO 333 and UCO 444 take at least ₹10,000, UCO 535 at least ₹25,000, and the Green Deposits ₹10,000.
The scheme sheets carry two things the rate card does not. The first is senior rates, printed rather than derived — 6.55% on UCO 333, 6.95% on UCO 444, 7.10% on UCO 535, the split rule shown working. The second is an expiry: UCO 333 and UCO 444 are each marked valid to 30 June 2026, a date now past, while the rate card still lists both rows and carries a 1 September 2026 update stamp. UCO 535 runs to 31 March 2027. Nothing on the site says whether the first two were extended, so ask before planning a 333- or 444-day booking.
One column is easy to misread. Alongside each rate UCO prints a yield that climbs with the length of the deposit even where the rate does not — the same 6.00% appears against yields from 6.33% to 7.71%, because the column annualises compounded interest over the whole term rather than restating the contracted rate. The 3000-day row showing 8.04% is a 6.20% deposit.
Central Bank of India’s card of 10 August 2026
Central Bank publishes a general and a senior column outright, for deposits below ₹3 crore, effective 10 August 2026.
| Maturity period | General public | Senior citizen |
|---|---|---|
| 7–14 days | 3.00% | 3.50% |
| 15–30 days | 3.50% | 4.00% |
| 31–45 days | 3.50% | 4.00% |
| 46–59 days | 4.25% | 4.75% |
| 60–90 days | 4.00% | 4.50% |
| 91–179 days | 4.25% | 4.75% |
| 180–270 days | 5.50% | 6.00% |
| 271–364 days | 6.00% | 6.50% |
| 1–2 years | 6.10% | 6.60% |
| 2–3 years | 6.25% | 6.75% |
| 3–5 years | 6.00% | 6.50% |
| 5–10 years | 6.00% | 6.50% |
The 60–90 day bucket pays 25 basis points less than the buckets on either side of it, so a 75-day deposit earns less than a 50-day one. That is on the card as printed, not a transcription error.
The special tenors sit in their own tables, each with its own effective date, and each published twice — once callable, once non-callable:
| Special tenor | Callable, general | Callable, senior | Non-callable, general | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 333 days | 6.50% | 7.00% | 6.60% | 10 Jun 2026 |
| 444 days | 6.75% | 7.25% | 6.85% | 10 Aug 2026 |
| 555 days | 6.30% | 6.80% | 6.40% | 10 Dec 2025 |
The non-callable rows pay 10 basis points more but are scoped to deposits above ₹1 crore, so a retail depositor generally cannot book them. That scoping matters more than the 10 basis points, because the senior ladder is attached to it. The general note gives 0.50% above 60 on any time deposit, which is what the senior column already contains. The richer increments — 0.75% for a super senior citizen, defined as a resident individual of 80 or above, 1% for staff, 1.75% for a super-senior ex-staff member — are introduced on the page as applying to deposits under the non-callable scheme. A depositor of 80 who reads 0.75% on an aggregator is reading a rule for a bracket they are not in.
The extra rate is smaller than the search implies
The seven majors below come from this site’s maintained fixed deposit comparison, read from each bank’s own page on 27 August 2026; the two rows in bold are the cards above, read on 4 September.
| Bank | Peak general rate | Exact peak tenor |
|---|---|---|
| Kotak Mahindra Bank | 6.80% | 2 years–<3 years |
| Bank of Baroda | 6.75% | 555 days |
| Central Bank of India | 6.75% | 444 days |
| Punjab National Bank | 6.60% | 444 days |
| Canara Bank | 6.60% | 555 days, minimum ₹5 lakh |
| UCO Bank | 6.60% | 535 days |
| Union Bank of India | 6.55% | 555 days |
| HDFC Bank | 6.50% | 3 years 1 day–<4 years 7 months |
| SBI | 6.45% | 444 days |
Read that column downwards and the premise of the question collapses. UCO Bank’s peak is the median of the seven majors, matched to the basis point by Punjab National Bank and by Canara Bank, and Central Bank of India sits 5 basis points below the highest rate in the set, which belongs to a private bank.
Step off the special tenors and the gap runs the other way. On the plain one-year row both pay 6.10%, against 6.25% at SBI and HDFC Bank — 15 basis points behind the two largest banks, not ahead of them.
Where a genuine advantage exists it is narrow and tenor-specific. At 444 days Central Bank of India pays 6.75% against SBI’s 6.45%. Thirty basis points on ₹5,00,000 held for 444 days is roughly ₹1,825 of simple interest before tax, or about ₹1,255 in hand at a 30% slab with 4% cess — a little under ₹90 a month. That is the whole size of the prize.
The best rows are one day wide
At UCO the tenor you pick is worth several times more than the bank you pick. A depositor who wants roughly eleven months and books 333 days earns 6.30%; the same depositor booking 334 days earns 5.00%. On ₹5,00,000, before compounding and before tax, that single day is worth about ₹5,860 — more than three times the entire 444-day advantage over SBI. And 332 days also pays 5.00%, so the high rate is not a plateau you can land near. The pattern repeats: 444 days pays 6.45% while both 443 and 445 pay 6.10%; 535 days pays 6.60% while both neighbours pay 6.10%.
Fix the date you need the money, then check whether a named single-day scheme lands on it; work the maturity values on your own principal with the FD interest rates calculator. Renewal is where that single day is lost — UCO’s scheme sheet states that a UCO 535 deposit is renewed for the same 535 days at the card rate prevailing then, not the one you booked.
Both banks bury their best long deposit in a green scheme
UCO’s Green Deposits pay the retail card rate plus 20 basis points. That produces 6.20% at 1000, 2000 and 3000 days against 6.00% on the ordinary rows around them — and, in a separate green-deposit table the main maturity grid does not reflect, 6.30% on a 12-month green deposit against 6.10% on the ordinary one-year row. Central Bank of India’s Cent Green Time Deposit runs 1111, 2222 and 3333 days at the card rate plus 0.25% or 0.50%, giving 6.25% and 6.50% general and 6.75% and 7.00% for a senior, against 6.00% general and 6.50% senior on every ordinary row beyond three years.
The trade-offs are what stop this being free money. UCO’s green deposits carry no loan or overdraft facility and no auto-renewal; the scheme sheet has the depositor give a mandate for the maturity proceeds to go to a savings or current account. Central Bank’s green scheme has no auto-renewal either, takes a minimum of ₹50,000 against ₹10,000 on its 444-day deposit, and can be opened only through net or mobile banking. A deposit you cannot borrow against is a deposit you may have to break.
One caution on UCO’s green rate. The rate card prices the scheme at card rate plus 20 basis points; the bank’s own fixed deposit page prints the same scheme at the plain card rate — 6.00%, not 6.20%. Two UCO pages disagree, both read the same day, and we did not put the question to the bank. Get the figure confirmed on the booking screen.
Safety does not depend on the size of the bank
Deposit insurance does the work that branch count is imagined to do. DICGC cover is ₹5,00,000 per depositor per bank, principal and interest together; the scheme is compulsory, no bank can withdraw from it, and the figure does not move with a bank’s size or ownership. The mechanics that do matter — joint holdings, aggregation across branches, claim timing — are in our guide to DICGC deposit insurance.
Supervision is the visible part. Both banks have been through the Reserve Bank’s Prompt Corrective Action framework, which imposes restrictions when a bank breaches thresholds on regulatory capital, net NPAs or leverage. RBI took UCO Bank out of PCA restrictions on 8 September 2021 and Central Bank of India on 20 September 2022, in both cases subject to conditions and continuous monitoring. That is not a reason to avoid either bank; it is evidence that the mechanism protecting depositors operates and is published.
Because the rate differences here run to tens of basis points at most, splitting a large sum across banks to stay inside the ₹5 lakh cover costs almost nothing.
The friction is documentation, not the app
“Better rate, worse app” is the trade-off people think they are weighing, and this page cannot measure it honestly: store ratings move weekly, are not a primary source, and one person’s experience is not evidence. What can be checked is each bank’s published estate, and the two handle it differently.
UCO labels its dead products. Its deposit schemes page still carries UCO Thousand — a 1000-day deposit at 7.80% a year, a rate the page dates to 2 November 2015 — but files it under a heading reading “Information Regarding Closed Schemes”, so the stale figure cannot be mistaken for an offer. Central Bank of India does not. Its live product page for the Cent Super Callable Time Deposit for 444 days prints 7.45% with effect from 10 August 2024, against 6.75% with effect from 10 August 2026 on the rate card two clicks away, and the only qualification is a footnote saying rates change from time to time. Seventy basis points sit between two current pages with nothing to say which one governs.
The addresses differ too. Central Bank has migrated cleanly, so the legacy centralbankofindia.co.in redirects to centralbank.bank.in. UCO has not: on 4 September 2026 the legacy ucobank.com failed the TLS handshake on an expired certificate at both the apex and the www host, so a browser interrupts with a security warning instead. The live site is uco.bank.in.
What breaking the deposit costs
Central Bank of India charges penal interest of 1% on premature withdrawal irrespective of the amount, and levies no penalty on a premature renewal provided the new deposit runs longer than the remaining period of the old one. UCO bands its penalty by size: 1% below the applicable rate for term deposits under ₹15 lakh, 1% again from ₹15 lakh to under ₹1 crore, and 2% at ₹1 crore and above.
Two things then happen in sequence. The rate is first reset to the card rate for the period the money actually stayed — as on the date of deposit or the present rate, whichever is lower — and the penalty then comes off that reset rate, not off the one you contracted. Break a 535-day deposit at ten months and the money has run about 304 days, which falls in UCO’s 181–332 day bucket paying 5.00%. Take the percentage point off and a deposit booked at 6.60% pays 4.00%.
Where the cash need is temporary, a loan against the FD usually beats closure, because it preserves the contracted rate and the maturity date. Interest is taxable as it accrues either way; the deduction thresholds are in our guide to tax on FD interest.
What to settle before you book
Confirm six things on the bank’s own screen rather than on a rate page: the exact number of days, the contracted rate for that row, the maturity date, whether the row is callable, the scheme name and its minimum, and the penalty on early closure. Ask for the senior increment on your tenor rather than in general — at UCO it is 0.25% below one year, not the half-point most sites quote. Then keep the deposit receipt. A dated advice from the bank is better evidence than any rate page, including this one, and at both of these banks better than several of their own.
Common questions
Which of the two pays more, UCO Bank or Central Bank of India?
On the cards read on 4 September 2026, Central Bank of India’s best general rate is 6.75% on a 444-day callable deposit and UCO Bank’s is 6.60% on a deposit of exactly 535 days. Comparing peaks is the wrong comparison, because the two peaks sit on different tenors. Row by row: at 444 days Central Bank pays 6.75% and UCO 6.45%; at one year both pay 6.10%; between two and three years Central Bank pays 6.25% and UCO 6.00%. Fix the maturity date you need, then compare that single row.
Is money safer in SBI than in a smaller public sector bank?
Not in the way that matters to a depositor. DICGC cover is ₹5,00,000 per depositor per bank for principal and interest together, and the same figure applies at every insured bank regardless of size. The scheme is compulsory and no bank can withdraw from it, all commercial banks are covered, and the Reserve Bank lists both UCO Bank and Central Bank of India among India’s twelve public sector banks. Above ₹5 lakh you rank as an unsecured creditor at any bank, which argues for spreading money across banks rather than for picking the largest one.
Do senior citizens get the usual 0.50% extra at UCO Bank?
Not on shorter deposits. UCO Bank publishes no senior column at all. It publishes an additive rule instead: 0.25% up to one year and 0.50% above one year, so the familiar half-point applies only past the one-year mark. Its scheme sheets print the result rather than leaving it to be worked out — 6.55% for a senior on UCO 333, 6.95% on UCO 444 and 7.10% on UCO 535. A senior booking the 333-day deposit earns 25 basis points less than a flat half-point would suggest.
Can a super senior citizen get the 0.75% rate at Central Bank of India?
Usually not, on a retail deposit. Central Bank of India’s note attaches the richer ladder — 0.75% for a super senior citizen of 80 or above, 1% for staff, up to 1.75% for a super-senior ex-staff member — to deposits under the non-callable scheme, and its non-callable tables are scoped to deposits above ₹1 crore. Below that, the applicable increment is the flat 0.50% for anyone above 60, which is already built into the published senior column. Confirm the figure at the branch before assuming the higher one.
What does breaking one of these deposits early cost?
Central Bank of India charges penal interest of 1% on premature withdrawal irrespective of the amount, with no penalty on a premature renewal that runs longer than the remaining original term. UCO Bank bands the penalty by size: 1% below the applicable rate under ₹15 lakh, 1% again from ₹15 lakh to under ₹1 crore, and 2% at ₹1 crore and above. Two things bite in sequence. The rate is first reset to the card rate for the period the money actually stayed, and the penalty then comes off that reset rate.
Sources
Rates and rules on this page were read directly from the following sources on the dates shown. Figures change — if you are about to act on one, confirm it at the source.
- Interest Rates on Deposit Schemes — Domestic Term Deposits less than Rs.3 Crore, revised w.e.f. 21.05.2026
- Fixed Deposit — scheme sheets for UCO 333, UCO 444, UCO 535 and UCO Green Deposits, and the premature-closure penal charges table
- Deposit Schemes — UCO Thousand Fixed Deposit Scheme
- Interest Rates on Deposit — Domestic Term Deposit rates w.e.f. 10.08.2026 and special term deposit rates
- Cent Green Time Deposit Scheme
- Cent Super Callable Time Deposit for 444 days
- Bank Links — List of Public Sector Banks in India
- Prompt Corrective Action Framework — UCO Bank, 8 September 2021
- Prompt Corrective Action Framework — Central Bank of India, 20 September 2022
- Guide to Deposit Insurance
- Retail domestic term deposit rates
- Fixed deposit interest rates
- Fixed deposit interest rates