Immediately after the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) had issued Circular 01, providing for the rescheduling, exemption and reduction of interest rates for customers affected by the disease, many banks published internal documents, starting to support business and people in the difficult period.
On March 24, SBV organised an online meeting with 12 joint-stock commercial banks on the implementation of solutions to support businesses and people damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank) planned to extend the debt to 200 customers with a total value of 1.5 trillion in March.
At the meeting, general director of TPBank, Nguyen Hung, said, before Circular 01, TPBank took the initiative to review the customer portfolio, then contributed opinions to build Circular 01, taking specific measures to support customers.
In the analysis of TPBank’s customer portfolio, about 20 percent were severely affected, the remaining 40 percent were relatively affected, 40 percent were less concerned, 13 percent were not affected like businesses in trading consumer, essential goods. Apparently, Circular 01 created favourable conditions for customers to reduce financial pressure when there was no revenue during this period, such as companies in the area of aviation, tourism, hotels. Since Circular 01 took effect so far, TPBank was expected in March to consider rescheduling about 200 customers with a loan balance of 1.5 trillion dong. Meanwhile, the total number of customers affected was about 20 trillion dong to 30 trillion dong on the total balance.
According to Hung, there had not been any problems with Circular 01. The only difficulty was that the number of documents submitted by units to consider to restructure the debt must still follow the provisions of Circular 22 with full order and issue, which raised the problem of resource to deploy.
Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) reduced a series of fees and launched a support package of 25 trillion dong.
Meanwhile, Tu Tien Phat deputy general director of ACB said that from March 18, ACB had received 392 customer requests with a total balance of more than 4 trillion dong. The number of such customers was relatively large.
Regarding new lending, before the time of January, ACB announced a loan package of 25 trillion dong, lower interest rates from one percent to two percent per year. By the end of February, ACB had disbursed 21,900 customers with more than 20 trillion dong, pledging to expand this package after it had been used up.
If there were a group of customers who were severely and directly affected by this disease, ACB would provide an additional credit package of 5 trillion dong, lending to customers to restore business activities after the epidemic, with the term of 12 months. After 12 months, the customer made the payment.
With the policy of fee reduction under the doctrines of SBV and National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (Napas), Phat said, not only partially reduced but also ACB entirely exempted customers from the fee, especially with online transactions. With some types of cards, ACB spared the expense on ATMs, even customers who used ATM cards in other banks were also completely free. Also, for corporate customers, for international payment, the bank reduced by 50%.
Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) organised the online meeting for some employees to work from home and increased disinfection
SHB’s deputy general director, Ninh Thi Lan Phuong, said, SHB also had solutions to be able to operate continuously, such as provisioning of points to avoid blockade, allowing employees to work at home, organising online meetings.
For customers, there were several solutions and policies, such as providing customers with a bactericidal solution, masks, 30 percent to 50 percent reduction for money transfer services, plus interest 0,4 percent to 0.5 percent for customers sending money online, a COVID-19 insurance package for customers who save money and personal loans.
SHB also reviewed the business activities of enterprises affected by COVID-19 to provide appropriate support packages. The Bank had established a Steering Committee of COVID-19 headed by the general director, having three deputy directors in charge of three areas. Ninh Thi Lan Phuong added that regarding the treasury field, the official letters of SBV were obvious. Besides, SHB disinfected money, ATM, machines with a thicker frequency, ensuring staff peace of mind.
Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) was disbursing new credit packages of 10 trillion dong for small and medium customers
Deputy general director of MB, Pham Thi Trung Ha, shared, immediately after SBV’s Circular 01 had been issued on March 13, that evening, MB also released documents in the whole system.
According to Ha, on the current document issue, the main problem was the evaluation criteria. However, the bank agreed with the units that a customer might be affected by not only COVID-19 but also many other factors. Then, focusing on re-evaluating all customers would take a long time. Hence, the whole system of MB agreed that only evaluating criteria related to income impact, revenue after COVID-19, which was an essential part of customers’ revenue.
So far, MB had been in operation since the beginning of March, mainly on their principal and maturity debts, while the originals had not been much because they had been restructured. According to the assessment of the Central Region, which identified customers with a 70 percent to 80 percent decrease in revenue, MB had built an initial list, about 1 trillion dong of interest rate reduction of about one percent compared to the current interest rate that was being applied. About the new loan issue, on February 14, 2020, the bank had offered a package for small and medium customers of 10 trillion dong and was currently disbursing gradually.
According to Nguyen Quoc Hung, Head of Credit Department of economic sectors, when SBV implemented instructions to credit institutions, joint-stock commercial banks fiercely participated. According to preliminary grasp, some banks had issued internal regulations Circular 01, such as ACB, HCM City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank), Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB), SHB, Sai Gon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank). After participating in the comments, commercial banks had actively issued documents to guide the implementation, thereby creating conditions for removing difficulties for customers in time.
In the coming time, banks would closely monitor the epidemic situation, continue to drastically, proactively and effectively carry out measures to prevent and control epidemics; grasp customers’ business activities to promptly apply supportive measures, such as rescheduling debt payment, considering exemption and reduction of loan interests, keeping debt group, fee reduction, to customers that had difficulty repaying loans due to the effects of the epidemic.
