Hanoi (VNA) – The banking sector should take more drastic measures torestructure credit institutions in association with the settlement of bad debtsto contribute to curbing inflation and stabilising macro-economic factors,according to insiders.

Data from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) show that asof June 15, the credit outstanding balance of the economy had reached about 12.32quadrillion VND (over 523.9 billion USD), up 3.36% compared to the end of 2022and 8.94% over the same period last year.

In the restructuring of credit institutions associated withbad debt settlement, the central bank maintains the drasticimplementation of tasks and solutions mentioned in the project on restructuringcredit institutions associated with bad debt settlement in the 2021-2025 period.Meanwhile, State-owned commercial banks continue to play a dominant role in thesystem of credit institutions in terms of capital size, assets, capital mobilisation, and credit.

SBV Standing Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu said that thebanking sector has continuously implemented all mechanisms and policies; andtried as hard as possible to ensure the successful completion of its politicaltasks of controlling inflation, stabilising the macro-economy, and accompanyingbusinesses to remove difficulties, and promote its role as a state managementagency in ensuring the safe and healthy operation of the credit institutionsystem, and gradually restructuring poorly performing credit institutions to limitlosses.

Currently, there are four banks with poor performancessubject to compulsory restructuring and transfer (acquired by the State for zeroVND and assigned to large banks to operate), namely Dong A CommercialJoint Stock Bank (DongABank), Vietnam Construction Commercial One MemberLimited Liability Bank (CBBank), Ocean Commercial One Member Limited LiabilityBank (Oceanbank), and Global Petro Commercial Joint Stock Bank (GPBank).

As for the Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), in lateOctober 2022, the central bank put this credit institution under specialcontrol.

SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said that the restructuringof banks with poor performances is a backlog and very difficult to handle.Restructuring such a bank in normal conditions is already very difficult, and itis even more difficult in this current condition.

According to experts, the restructuring of creditinstitutions associated with bad debt settlement needs to aim at the highestgoal of making the financial and monetary market healthy, and improving thegovernance capacity of these institutions in accordance with law andinternational practices.

In addition, special attention should be paid to the controland handling of bad debts in the context of declining economic activities andenterprises facing difficulties in production and sale.

It is necessary to continue strengthening the inspection andsupervision to focus on effectively handling ineffective commercial banks, ensureliquidity and system safety, and concentrate on handling existing bad debts and preventing new ones./.