HÀ NỘI — Commercial banks must continue to simplify their lending procedures to ensure that firms and individuals can get loans easily, State Bank of Việt Nam’s deputy governor Đào Minh Tú said.

Tú was speaking during a recent inspection of the implementation of the Government’s administrative procedure reform plan in the country’s four largest State-owned banks.

Though administrative procedures in banks have seen reforms, banks must streamline processes, procedures and standards related to banking products and services and make them available to the public this year, he said.

Banks must scrutinise existing processes and do away with the unnecessary, illogical ones to save the customers’ transaction time as well as to cut costs, Tú said. He expects it to give both firms and individuals easier access to banking products and services.

During inspection at Vietinbank, the bank’s general director Lê Đức Thọ said his bank has adjusted all processes and procedures to make its services and products customer-friendly, to reduce the transaction time, while complying with all safety and risk governance requirements.

Vietinbank has streamlined forms on credit and guarantee granting, which have been cut from 12-13 pages to 4-8 pages to make it easier for customers, Thọ said.      

Currently, he said, it will take customers who have qualified mortgaged assets between four and eight hours to get a loan from the bank.

Nguyễn Thị An Bình, deputy general director of Military Bank, said her bank set up a dedicated board on administrative reforms in 2012 in accordance with the SBV’s instructions. The bank has so far designed 29 standard forms on its main services and products and has cut short 53 per cent of its contracts from 26 pages to 10, she said.

Military Bank has also cut 27 per cent of the forms required for individual customers. The time taken by the bank for international payment service has been reduced by a third.

Nguyễn Duy Thành, director of Hà Nội-based Sinh Thành Forestry Export and Import Co, said that lending procedures are much more flexible now, which has especially helped small- and medium-sized firms gain easier access to bank loans.

Thanks to it, his company has increased production to export to new markets in South Africa and Middle East regions, he said. — VNS