Twelve largest banks agree to lower lending rate to 17-19pct/yr as from mid-Sep

After the working session with the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on August 26, 2011, 12 largest commercial banks committed to seriously apply the deposit rate cap at 14% per year and agreed to lower the lending interest rate for business and production sectors to 17-19% per year as from the middle of September 2011.
Basing on the government’s direction and the actual situation of the market as well as the reviews from commercial banks, the central bank’s governor offered solutions for the banking operations in the remaining four months of this year.

Accordingly, credit institutions are required to continue to control credit growth at below 20%.

Depending on the market situations, especially the demand and supply of foreign currency, the central bank will continue the flexible money supply to ensure the harmony between the credit growth and money supply in months and ensure the goal of monetary policy.

From now till the end of this year, the central bank will keep the dong deposit rate cap stable at 14% per year to create conditions for credit institutions to bring the lending interest rate down to 17-19% per year for common business and production sectors.

The central bank will also apply closer mechanism on lending in foreign currency for borrowers without foreign currency earnings from business and production activities to repay for debts. At the same time, the central bank will increase the ratio and expand the scale of compulsory reserve ratio (CRR) in foreign currency for credit institutions.

SBV will run the forex rate so that by the end of this year, the maximum fluctuation would be 1 percent and the international payment balance may be in surplus of $2.5-4.5 billion.

SBV will stabilize the local gold price in line with the global gold price to prevent speculation and manipulation. The central bank is building gold price stabilization plan in the short term to submit to the government and another plan to raise gold from the economy to increase the national reserve of foreign currency and ensure the interest of gold-holders as well as strengthen the state management.

The central bank will strengthen inspection and supervision activities on the operations of credit institutions and strictly deal with violations.

Credit institutions should have assessments on the financial capacity, capital structure and business situation of customers.

The SBV will maintain a regular dialogue on policy between the central bank and commercial banks, especially 12 largest commercial banks (accounting for nearly 80% of the market share in banking operations), including Vietcombank, VietinBank, Bidv, Agribank, ACB, Eximbank, Sacombank, Techcombank, MB, Maritime Bank, VPBank and VIB. – Vietbiz24

Tags: Vietnam banking industry, Vietnam finance, Vietnam financial