The number of new customers of commercial banks has increased dramatically in recent years thanks to their digital applications.

If bond issuers fall into insolvency, the price of bonds could fall to zero, creating a high risk for banks.

Vietnam’s economy is well supported by its policy, but headwinds in the world’s financial market, with risks from the European and American financial systems, have caused concern.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is collecting comments on its draft revised Law on Credit Institutions to better ensure the safety of the banking system.

BIDV, VietinBank and Vietcombank, the three banks out of the ‘big four’, are leading in capital mobilization and lending, according to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

Big banks are selling both high-value and low-value debts.

Eight commercial banks have received new credit growth quotas for this year, with seven of them entitled to lend less than last year.

A number of banks have offered for sale debt and collateral to recover and handle bad debts in the first half of last month.

The group of the four biggest State-owned banks (Big4) have launched preferential loan packages with interest rate reductions of up to 3 per cent per year to lower short-term lending rates to only 7 per cent per year.

Vietnamese banks showed great performance in 2022, consolidated by a credit growth rate of nearly 13 per cent and an economic growth rate of 8 per cent, the highest in the last 25 years.

The Ministry of Finance has announced strict measures will be taken against bank employees and credit institutions that force customers to buy insurance packages to get bank loans.

Vietnamese banking brands have posted an overall growth of 31.3 per cent in brand value, amounting over $2 billion compared to their 2022 positions.

Tram Be, former vice board chairman at the Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial JSC (Sacombank), was freed from prison on February 10, having served his seven-year sentence.

The big four banks, Agribank, BIDV, VietinBank and Vietcombank, are commercial banks employing the most staff, with a total of 110,000 workers.

Many banks reported negative results in securities trading and investment in 2022 due to the interest rate hike, the exchange rate uncertainty, the sharp decline of stock indices and the ‘freezing’ of the corporate bond market, cafef.vn reported.

Foreign ownership limits at credit institutions were expected to be raised to an appropriate level to attract foreign investment, which plays an important role in improving operational efficiency and accelerating the banking sector's restructuring.

Right from the beginning of 2023, many banks have announced their plans for merge and acquisition (M&A) deals and capital increase.

Many banks might have recorded positive profit growth in 2022. But challenges are awaiting them this year given negative factors such as high interest rates and bad debt.

The fact that banks have refrained from lending does not result from their concerns over the credit growth cap since it has already been revised up without any abrupt surge in new loans. There are other factors influencing how banks lend.

Vietnam’s four biggest State-owned banks have an urgent need for capital increase in 2023 as their charter capital is too low, with some unable to ensure the regulated minimum capital adequacy ratio (CAR), according to industry insiders.