Banking & Finance

While large banks have kept their deposit rates unchanged, smaller banks with capital of less than VND5 trillion ($216 million) have begun to increase rates in order to address liquidity risks prior to the peak year-end period.

CIMB Bank and the F88 Joint Stock Company have signed a strategic cooperation agreement and introduced convenient financial services for customers in Vietnam. They have set two criteria for products: loans to have preferential interest rates, and loans to be easily accessible.

The VNDIRECT Securities Company believes that Vietnam’s auto industry will recover from the fourth quarter of 2021 onwards and that this is a “golden time” to invest in auto stocks. Vietnam has posted among the fastest growth in personal car sales over the past decade, with 9 per cent of the population expected to own a car by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030.

State investment shrunk sharply this year due to an inability to disburse capital from government bonds. Most idle funds mobilized by the State were deposited in the banking system, with VND700 trillion ($30.31 billion) not being used effectively.

The USD/VND exchange rate has been quite high in recent days, with the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and market operators stopping commercial banks from receiving funds to conduct foreign exchange spot transactions. Despite the fact that no more money was injected into the system and that credit accelerated, liquidity in the banking system remained abundant. This is most evident in interest rates remaining flat at the lower end.

More than 220,000 individual securities accounts were opened in November - the ninth month in succession that new openings passed the 100,000 mark and the first month the number exceeded 200,000. Domestic investors opened more than 1.3 million new accounts in the first eleven months of the year.