Việt Nam News

From October 1 lenders including banks will not be allowed to provide medium- and long-term foreign currency loans to businesses to pay for imports. Many market observers said this is the State Bank of Việt Nam’s final step in its fight against dollarisation.

The money market is seeing the first signs of loosening though the State Bank of Việt Nam has yet to make a decision on reducing benchmark interest rates.

Soon after the US announced a 0.25 per cent cut in the benchmark interest rate on July 31 seven Vietnamese banks, including State-owned lenders, announced a cut in interest rates on đồng loans of at least 0.5 per cent to firms in the Government’s priority sectors.

Economists said the State-owned sector’s tardy growth reveal an imbalance between business results (revenue) and investment including assets and capital used for production.

Some shipping companies have stopped operating on inefficient overseas routes and are instead using their vessels domestically, significantly reducing costs.

At the annual general meeting of Vietnam International Bank (VIB) in HCM City on March 28, shareholders approved a dividend of 26.5 per cent for 2019, including 5.5 per cent in cash and the rest in shares.

A question being asked by many experts now is why banks are joining a race to increase deposit interest rates though there is no ostensible liquidity shortage.

In 2019 the State Bank of Việt Nam has set a credit growth target for the banking sector of 14 per cent, lower than the rates of 18 per cent in 2017 and 17 per cent in 2018.

Since the beginning of the year the State Bank of Việt Nam has been increasing the reference rate of the đồng against the US dollar, and the Vietnamese currency has appreciated 0.43 per cent as a result.

The explosion in e-commerce has sent demand for logistics, especially transportation, through the roof.

Analysts have recently been bombarded with a question by investors: will bank shares continue to be attractive this year?

Last August Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc issued Decision No.986/QĐ-TTg on the Development Strategy of the Banking Sector.

Last month, property developer Vingroup unveiled plans to sell 20 million non-convertible bonds at VNĐ100,000 (US$4.39) each in two phases without any covered warrants or guaranteed assets.