With the new decisions released on November 3, the usable capital of commercial banks may reach VND100tril, which is believed will lead to the sharp decreases of lending interest rates.
The Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on November 3 decided to cut the basic interest rate in Vietnamese dong by 1% to 12% as of November 5.
Nguyen Phuoc Thanh, General Director of the Vietnam Bank for Foreign Trade (Vietcombank), said that the usable capital of commercial banks has been in excess the last two months, with the volume increasing gradually from VND30tril to VND40tril and VND50tril recently.
The volume of VND50tril in excess was confirmed by the Monetary Policies Department under the State Bank of Vietnam at the end of October.
Besides the said volume of VND50tril, banks now can get capital from the VND20,300bil worth of compulsory bonds the central bank decided to ‘set free’ sooner than previously expected.
SBV on October 20 decided to make payments for the compulsory bonds before they matured on March 17, 2009. On March 17, 2008, with the aim of limiting the volume of cash in circulation to curb inflation, SBV issued VND20,300bil ($1,250mil) worth of compulsory bonds. Forty-one banks had to purchase bonds.
In addition, according to Dragon Capital, a foreign-owned investment fund management company, in October and November, there will be some $1.3bil worth of government bonds (VND22tril) maturing.
A noteworthy thing of the decisions released yesterday, November 3, was that the compulsory reserve ratios, for the first time in many months, were lowered to 10% from 11% for VND deposits, and to 9% from 11% for US$ deposits. As such, another source of money will be ‘liberalised’, which will bring even more usable capital to banks.
It is estimated that the volume of money to be ‘liberalised’ in accordance with the new decisions will be VND10-12tril. Each of the big banks like Vietcombank, BIDV and Vietinbank may get back VND1,000-1,500bil, while Sacombank or ACB may get back VND560-600bil.
Consequently, the excess usable capital of commercial banks may reach VND100tril in the time to come.
It is estimated that in February and March, the volume of money the State Bank of Vietnam ‘withdrew’ from commercial banks through compulsory reserves and compulsory bonds reached VND40tril.
A question has been raised about how commercial banks will deal with the VND100tril.
Lending interest rates decreasing rapidly
Signs of capital excess appeared in September, but credit growth has been very low since the beginning of the year.
By the end of September, the total outstanding loans of the banking system had just increased by 18.03%, while the ceiling credit growth rate for this year is 30%, which means that there is ‘big room’ for banks to push up loaning.
On November 3, the Vietnam Banking Association called on its members to adjust interest rate policies.
Big banks including Vietcombank, the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) and Agribank have begun applying new interest rates which are 1.5%-2% per annum lower than the previous rates. The lowest interest rate now is just 15% per annum, or 3% lower than the ceiling lending interest rate.
(Source: TBKTVN)
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