Vietnam’s GDP stood at approximately VND12,850 trillion ($494.2 billion) in 2025, while total social investment reached around VND4.150 trillion ($159.6 billion), equivalent to 32 per cent of GDP. If the investment ratio rises to around 40 per cent of GDP in the time ahead, the amount of capital that must be mobilized will increase significantly. Yet the bigger challenge lies not only in the volume of capital required, but also in the characteristics of demand in the new cycle.
Sectors such as transport infrastructure, seaports, airports, energy, logistics, industrial parks, technology, and the green transition require substantial capital, long payback periods, and greater risk tolerance during their early stages. According to VIS Rating and CGIF, Vietnam is expected to need around $245 billion for key infrastructure projects during the 2025-2030 period, including around $176 billion in public investment.
This means a new growth cycle also requires a new capital cycle. A project with a 15 to 20-year lifecycle is unlikely to be financed efficiently if it relies heavily on short-term funding. Similarly, a company entering a major investment phase will struggle to maintain financial health if its entire expansion is financed through debt. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to secure “more capital,” but to put the right type of capital into the right needs, with appropriate maturities and risk levels.
Expanding resources
For many years, the banking system has remained Vietnam’s most important source of capital. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), bank-based financing is equivalent to around 125 per cent of GDP, while market-based financing, including bonds and equities, accounts for only around 30 per cent. This reflects the important role banks play in working capital, trade finance, and corporate lending.
However, as capital needs become larger and longer term, an overly bank-dependent funding system faces growing pressure related to liquidity, maturity mismatches, and capital adequacy.
As of July 31, 2026, system-wide outstanding credit had reached approximately VND20,260 trillion ($779.2 billion), up 8.98 per cent since the end of 2025. Deposits from economic organizations and households stood at around VND18,680 trillion ($718.5 billion) as of July 27, up 5.75 per cent. Meanwhile, medium and long-term funding accounted for only around 16 per cent of total funding, while medium and long-term credit accounted for 48.5 per cent of outstanding loans.
Maturity transformation is a normal banking function, but as demand for long-term capital grows, greater reliance on short-term funding will create additional pressure across the system.
The answer is not to reduce the role of banks, but to expand the space for other sources of capital to participate in the funding process. Banks should continue to perform functions where they have advantages, while bond and equity markets and long-term institutional investors take on a greater share of medium and long-term funding needs and risk-bearing capital. This is the difference between expanding credit and expanding the economy’s overall capacity to mobilize resources.
Deeper capital markets
Vietnam’s capital markets have expanded rapidly. As of the end of June, the combined market capitalization of stocks listed on HoSE, HNX, and UPCoM exceeded VND10,570 trillion ($406.5 billion), equivalent to around 82.3 per cent of 2025 GDP. By the end of August, the securities market had nearly 13.9 million accounts.
But a larger market does not necessarily mean a greater ability to mobilize and allocate capital efficiently.
Market capitalization reflects the value of assets currently being traded. The true capacity of capital markets should be assessed by their ability to channel new funds to businesses and projects. A developed market needs more than high liquidity. It must provide sufficient capital, match appropriate maturities, price risk accurately, and allocate that risk to investors with suitable risk appetites.
This is the distinction between a “large” market and a “deep” one. A large market may have many accounts and high trading volumes, but a deep market must serve a broad range of financing needs and support investors with different risk profiles.
In the new capital cycle, the priority is therefore not simply to expand market size but to strengthen the ability to transform financial resources into long-term capital for businesses.
Pricing capital correctly
Another important feature of the new capital cycle is the quality of pricing. When discussing support for businesses, the focus is often on reducing the cost of capital. Over the long term, however, the priority is not to lower capital costs across the board but to ensure that they reflect a company’s level of risk and quality.
Businesses with strong cash flows, healthy balance sheets, transparent governance, and effective projects should be able to access capital on better terms than higher-risk businesses. If companies can access capital at broadly similar prices regardless of risk, markets will struggle to perform their function of selecting and allocating resources.
An efficient capital market therefore does more than move money from those with excess capital to those facing shortages. It creates mechanisms that direct resources toward businesses and projects capable of using capital more effectively.
This will also place greater demands on companies. As investors gain more choice, access to capital will increasingly depend on governance quality, transparency, financial discipline, capital allocation, and the ability to create long-term value.
The cost of capital is therefore not merely a number; it is also a measure of a company’s quality and credibility.
From savings to long-term capital
One of the system’s major bottlenecks is the gap between savings and long-term capital. According to the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), Vietnam’s savings rate currently stands at around 37 per cent of GDP. This indicates significant financial resources within the economy, but much of that money remains concentrated in bank deposits.
Meanwhile, professional investment institutions remain relatively small. As of the first quarter of 2026, total assets under management across Vietnam’s investment and pension funds exceeded VND835 trillion ($32.1 billion), equivalent to around 6.5 per cent of GDP. In the voluntary supplementary pension sector, after ten years of implementation, only four companies had been licensed, operating seven funds with total net assets of around VND2.21 trillion ($85 million).
This gap suggests that the fundamental challenge is not necessarily a lack of money, but a lack of effective mechanisms to transform savings into long-term investment capital.
An economy developing projects with ten to 20-year lifecycles needs investors willing to hold assets for comparable periods. Developing investment funds, insurers, pension funds, and other professional investment institutions is therefore not merely an asset management issue. It is part of building the financial infrastructure required for a new growth cycle.
Capital channels
Within the economy’s capital architecture, each funding channel has a distinct function.
Bonds are suited to medium and long-term debt financing. During the first eight months of 2026, corporate bond issuances reached approximately VND348.98 trillion ($13.4 billion), while government bond issuances stood at VND228.92 trillion ($8.8 billion). But a mature bond market cannot be measured solely by issuance volumes. It also depends on disclosure, credit ratings, pricing, secondary market liquidity, and investor protection.
The equity market serves a different function, providing risk-bearing capital during periods of growth. If a company’s entire expansion is financed through debt, interest obligations remain even when a project has yet to generate cash flow. Equity capital shares this risk and gives companies greater room to pursue long-term investment.
Banks, bonds, and equities should therefore not be viewed as competing channels that replace one another, but as complementary components of a complete financial system.
The key is to ensure that each source of capital is deployed to the right place, for the right maturity, and at a level of risk it is capable of absorbing.
Rebuilding resources
Viewed as a whole, Vietnam’s capital challenge in the time ahead is essentially a challenge of redesigning how resources move through the economy.
Banks will continue to play a critical role in working capital, trade finance, and corporate lending. The bond market needs to take on a greater role in providing medium and long-term debt capital. The equity market provides equity financing and capital with greater risk-bearing capacity. Investment funds, insurers, and pension funds can build long-term sources of capital, while foreign capital can supplement domestic resources and diversify the investor base.
No single capital channel can meet the full needs of an economy entering a higher growth cycle. What matters is building a structure in which resources can be mobilized flexibly, transmitted more efficiently, and allocated according to the appropriate maturity, purpose, and level of risk.
The challenge for the time ahead, therefore, is not simply how to secure more capital but how to build a resource system that is sufficiently large, sufficiently long term, and sufficiently deep to support the next stage of development.
This marks a shift from thinking about “sufficient capital” to thinking about the “right capital structure” - one in which resources are not only mobilized in greater volumes but also directed toward areas best positioned to generate sustainable economic value.
Google translate