Banks promote business loans at year’s end

Credit growth of the first 11 months of this year was at 10 percent, merely equal to that of the first nine months of last year whereas the target growth set by banking industry for this year is 14 percent. With only three weeks left, banks have been rushing to promote business loans.
Several banks concentrate capital for business loans at the end of the year to ensure credit quality. (Photo: SGGP)
Several banks concentrate capital for business loans at the end of the year to ensure credit quality. (Photo: SGGP)
Amid the context that the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) tightened credit to real estate sector as well as other risky sectors and banks, at the same time, have to restructure their capital structure to meet regulations about reducing the ratio of short-term loans for middle and long-term loans in accordance with the Circular No.19 of the SBV, commercial banks have offered various credit packages with preferential interest rates for peak business season at the end of the year.

Particularly, Eximbank puts aside VND4 trillion for small and medium sized enterprises to be proactive in business capital with interest rate from 6.99 percent per annum. VPBank supports 80 percent of the loan value. The maximum loan duration is eight years and disbursement is within four hours with interest rate levels of 6.9 percent per annum, 7.9 percent per annum and 8.9 percent per annum fixed in first three months, six months and twelve months respectively.

Nam A Bank is offering small and medium sized enterprises interest rates from 6.5 percent per annum for loans from 36 months to 120 months and from 7.5 percent per annum for loans from 24 months to below 36 months. Vietbank sets aside VND500 billion for enterprises in the manufacturing, trading and service sector with interest rates from 7 percent per annum.

ABBank reserves VND2.5 trillion for enterprises with fixed interest rate from 7.8 percent per annum in the first three months or from 8.3 percent per annum in the first six months. ACB also has credit package of VND5 trillion for loans to supplement working capital with interest rates from 7.5 percent per annum. VietCapital Bank has recently run a loan package, sponsoring up to 70 percent of capital for solar power panel installing projects of enterprises in order to meet energy needs for manufacturing.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, head of the Credit Department of Economic Sectors, said that by the end of third quarter of this year, credit balance for SMEs nearly reached VND1.48 quadrillion, an increase of 12.9 percent over last year. Noticeably, credit balance for SMEs increased faster than general credit growth rate of the economy. In the future, SBV will continue to carry out monetary, credit solutions to timely and fully meet the demand for capital of SMEs. At the same time, it will cooperate with relevant ministries and departments to synchronously implement policies to support enterprises specified in the Law on Supporting SMEs, in which there is a policy to support access to capital through various types of funds.

In Ho Chi Minh City alone, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the SBV-HCMC Branch, said that in the last 11 months, credit growth of the city has reached 12.4 percent. As for structure, among around VND2.4 quadrillion of borrowed loans, 76 percent of them was for business and manufacturing and the rest 24 percent was for real estate and consumption. This was a positive loan structure. Regarding credit in the last month of this year, he said that space for credit growth in the city in the last month of this year was about 1.6 percent, or more than VND30 trillion.

With such space, commercial banks will not lack of capital to serve business activities of enterprises. Particularly, Vietcombank has continued to lower interest rate by 0.5 percent with around VND320 trillion of credit balance in the last two months of this year. According to Vietcombank, it was able to cut interest rate as it managed to reduce costs, improve credit quality to lower the level of provision, hereby not affecting its profit plan.

In addition, this year, Vietcombank was allocated credit at 15 percent. In the first ten months of this year, credit growth merely at 10 percent, there was still 5 percent in the last two months so the lender focused on corporate customers, the group which accounted up to 60 percent of its credit balance. 

Finance and banking expert Dr. Nguyen Tri Hieu said that commercial banks have focused on credit quality rather than growth. Outstanding loans of the whole system are low but the growth of the economy is still on the increase, showing that credit growth has been sustainable and more substantive.

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