HANOI: Vietnam’s banks expect improved business in the second quarter ending June and better results for the whole of 2015, with easing interest rates and a reduction of bad debt in line with a government target, the central bank said on Monday.
The sector would post annual credit growth of nearly 17 percent, and deposits would grow nearly 15 percent this year from 2014, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) cited from its business sentiment survey of domestic and foreign banks in the country.
“Most banks expect their bad debt ratio will further the declining trend and be kept below 3 percent (of loans) by the end of 2015,” the SBV said in a statement. It did not say how many banks took part in the survey.
Demand for loans showed signs of quickening from March 2015 and more than half of the banks expected interest rates would ease 0.6-0.7 percentage point in the three-month period ending June and down by 0.87-1.1 percentage point for the whole year.The central bank has projected lending this year to grow up to 17 percent while bad debt would be cut to below 3 percent by the year end from 3.25 percent in December 2014.
