Banking & Finance

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Banks Association, said that compared to the 2005 Law on Electronic Transactions, the draft amended Law on Electronic Transactions that the National Assembly is consulting on features many improvements. Through opinions from members, however, the Association has found that there remain certain issues that need to be considered and adjusted to make the draft more feasible.

Moody’s has announced that it will maintain its positive “B1” credit rating for the Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank). Only five other joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam received this rating in this year’s assessments from Moody’s.

Total State budget revenue reached more than VND1.2 quadrillion ($51.3 billion) in the first eight months of this year, up 19.4 per cent year-on-year and representing 85.6 per cent of the annual estimate. State budget expenditure, meanwhile, stood at VND956.5 trillion ($40.89 billion), for a surplus of nearly VND252 trillion ($10.77 billion); the highest for many months.

The application of T+2 transactions to shorten the settlement time has helped market liquidity increase sharply. On August 29, when T+2 bonds were ready to be sold, liquidity on the three exchanges - HSX, HNX, and UpCOM - reached VND24.5 trillion, exceeding the threshold of $1.05 billion.

Bond issuances by real estate enterprises have been declining in recent times. According to the Vietnam Bond Market Association (VBMA), there were only eight individual corporate bond issuances in August, and only one was by a real estate company. One real estate enterprise issued bonds in July.

According to Viet Dragon Securities (VDSC), with lending rates on the rise, tightening credit space may push rates even higher in the second half of the year. The State Bank of Vietnam could adjust its credit growth target to make it more in line with actual needs, and credit growth for the year as a whole could reach 16 per cent.