Businesses are still up against it when it comes to applying for bank loans, even though Vietnam’s central bank has cut interest rates several times already this year.

Prudential and Manulife saw sudden increases in profits in 2022, while Dai-ichi, AIA and Bao Viet Life reported multi-trillion dong in profits last year.

The divestment of PGBank from Petrolimex is coming to an end. The secret buyer will be made public soon.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has proposed increasing the foreign ownership cap at some commercial banks from 30% to 49%.

The tightening of control over cross ownership aims to stop crises at banks.

Large foreign financial groups have actively penetrated the Vietnamese consumer finance market, which has significantly helped accelerate the digitalisation of the country’s financial services.

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.