Central bank names 14 crucial banks in Vietnam in 2024

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has approved a list of 14 credit institutions of systematic importance in 2024.

They include four state-controlled lenders Agribank, VietinBank, BIDV, Vietcombank, in addition to ACB, LPBank, Techcombank, HDBank, MBBank, VIB, SHB, Sacombank, TPBank and VPBank. All, except for wholly state-owned Agribank, are listed on the local stock exchange. No foreign bank branches are on the list.

Compared to the latest list issued in 2021, three banks have been excluded from the list, namely Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), Vietnam Maritime Bank (MSB), and SeABank.

Such a list helps orient banking authorities to enhance their supervision and checks to ensure the safe operation of the system.

The SBV requested its Banking Inspection and Supervision Agency and branches in provinces and centrally-run cities to closely supervise and promptly warn of risks in the operations of the above-mentioned 14 banks to prevent systemic risks.

The criteria for determining the importance of the system, the content of macro safety monitoring, the frequency of making macro safety monitoring reports for the group of credit institutions and foreign bank branches of importance is guided in the Banking Supervision Handbook issued by the SBV Governor.

As of end-2023, Vietnam has four state-owned commercial banks, 31 domestic commercial joint stock banks, nine wholly foreign-invested banks and two joint venture banks, along with two policy banks and one cooperative bank.

Outstanding bank loans in Vietnam increased by 0.26% as of March 25 against the end of last year, marking a rebound from negative growth a month earlier, according to the government-run General Statistics Office. Lending growth stood at 1.99% in the comparable period of 2023.