The three largest commercial banks in Vietnam have asked the government to lift the foreign ownership ratio ceiling in local banks. 

Most banks have reported huge profits for 2018. VIB Bank led banks with the highest growth rate of 95 percent, while Vietcombank had the highest profit of VND18.356 trillion in 2018.

VietNamNet Bridge - The reported bad debts of many commercial banks decreased within the last three months of 2018. At some banks, the debts were halved.

VietNamNet Bridge - Raising charter capital is the biggest challenge in 2019 not only for small joint stock banks but also for big state-owned banks.

With Circular 42 issued on December 28, 2018 which replaced Circular 24, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) tightened lending in foreign currencies in an effort to ease dollarization.

VietNamNet Bridge - In the 4.0 era, commercial banks need to digitalize and work with fintechs and technology firms, experts say.

VietNamNet Bridge - Property developers are seeking money from other sources as bank loans are drying up.

VietNamNet Bridge - Securities companies have predicted that the deposit interest rate will be lifted next year, leading to higher lending interest rates and capital costs for businesses.

VietNamNet Bridge - Commercial banks only have one month to implement business plans set earlier this year and raise charter capital to meet international standards.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam’s fintech market was valued at $4.4 million by the end of 2017, and the figure may reach $7.8 billion by 2020, a study of Solidiance found.

VietNamNet Bridge - While banks in other countries are following standards of Basel III, Vietnam has only two banks expected to be recognized as meeting Basel II standards in the time to come.

VietNamNet Bridge - Making late investments in high technology could cause a bank to lag behind, but if a bank goes too fast and customers are not ready, it will suffer losses.

VietNamNet Bridge - Of 24 joint stock banks which published their Q3 finance reports on their official websites, only three banks reported losses.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam’s banking sector, after overcoming a difficult period because of high bad debt in 2012-2014, has begun recovering.

VietNamNet Bridge - A report of the State Bank showed that the bad debt of the entire banking system had dropped from 10.08 percent in 2016 to 6.7 percent by the end of June 2018.

VietNamNet Bridge - The credit growth rate this year is lower than 2017, but banks’ profit is predicted to be 20-25 percent higher.

After many years of high credit growth rates, the ratio of credit to GDP in Vietnam has nearly hit the average level of OECD countries. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Once banks restrict lending, this will affect the real estate market. However, experts believe that no negative impact on the market will occur.

The ‘free’ foreign currency market has operated for many years. People go to gold shops to buy and sell dollars every day, even though the transactions are illegal.

VietNamNet Bridge - Enterprises from many different business fields have jumped into the lucrative field of consumer lending.