USD prices at Vietnamese banks hit record high

The USD price at Vietnamese commercial banks on Monday rose to an all-time high.

The State Bank of Vietnam, the country's central bank, set the daily reference exchange rate for the U.S. dollar at 24,831 VND/USD, up VND18 from Friday.

With the current trading band of +/- 5%, the ceiling rate applicable for commercial banks during the day is 26,073 VND/USD and the floor rate 23,589 VND/USD.

Banks on Monday raised the price to the record high level.

Vietcombank at 4 p.m. listed the buying rate at 25,450 VND/USD and selling rate at 25,810 VND/USD, up VND50 in both directions.

Vietinbank raised the USD price to VND25,310 and VND25,890 respectively, both up VND35. The figures for VPBank were VND25,470 and VND25,795 respectively, up VND50 in both directions.

Vietcombank and Vietinbank, both state-controlled banks, are among the top 4 Vietnamese banks, while VPBank is a leading private bank. The above figures refer to payments via bank transfer, instead of cash.

Many experts believe that the SBV will confront difficulties in monetary policy management in 2025 as VND devaluation pressure will be strong.

Nguyen Tri Hieu, director of the Institute for Research and Development of Global Financial and Real Estate Markets, in January said he believes that Trump's tax reduction policy for the rich will increase the U.S. budget deficit and potentially force the U.S. adminstration to issue bonds with high interest rates.

A budget deficit could also force the Fed to buy more U.S. government bonds, a move known as quantitative easing, swelling the U.S. central bank's total assets and injecting a large amount of money into the market.

"All of this is likely to increase inflation and force the Fed to reverse the current monetary policy from loosening back to tightening, pushing up the USD/VND exchange rate," he added.

Singaporean bank on March 12 wrore that the VND is likely to weaken further to 25,800 per U.S. dollar in Q2/2025 and 26,000 in Q3. The figures for Q4/2025 and Q1/2026 are 25,800 and 25,600, respectively.

The VND weakened to a record low of about 25,600/USD in early March after the SBV raised its USD sale prices to banks to 25,698/USD from 25,450 /USD, the first increase since last October, according to UOB.

"From here, the path of resistance is still biased towards further VND weakness due to China growth and tariff uncertainties. There is a risk of US imposing tariffs on Vietnam, owning to the latter’s sizable and growing trade surplus with the U.S.," UOB noted.

On February 12, SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said that the central bank's monetary and exchange rate policies will face significant pressure in 2025, as both the global and domestic economic environments remain unpredictable,