Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and even micro ones, according to statistics of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), account for over 90 percent of Vietnamese enterprises. At the conferences looking for capital support for this group of enterprises, VCCI, experts or associations still continue to refer to modest figures, such as only one third of enterprises have access to bank loans and only about 3-4 percent of the bank loans to the economy are for SMEs.
However, in the past year, the situation has changed. Recently attending a conference on banks and enterprises in the recent time, Nguyen Hong Chau, director of a food company acknowledged that these modest numbers no longer exist. “Bank currently are very active in removing difficulties in capital for enterprises”. In the high business seasons, his company and other members in the association are offered preferential loans, said Chau.
Chau’s company has borrowed loans at banks, including both unsecured loans, from the middle of last year, despite the fact that the revenue could be just around five to seven billion dong each year. “Banks are now fairly enthusiastic with small business group like us. Instead of tiptoeing to many banks as having no secured assets, we now may even have to consider the bank that offers faster disbursement and low interest rates”, Chau added.
SMEs have really become one of the priority customers of banks, even large banks. For example, Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Maritime Bank), in just a year, has continuously launched programmes with large-scale disbursement for SMEs. The latest one is the “five day fast approval, super competitive interest rate of only 6.99 percent per annum” with a total short-term lending limit to SMEs reaching up to 10 trillion dong. Accordingly, customers which are micro-enterprises (with turnover from 3-17 billion dong), or SMEs (with turnover of less than 500 billion dong) disbursed for the first time from now until August 31st are entitled to borrow at a maximum of three times of the secured asset value (secured loans) or up to four billion dong (unsecured loans). In addition, they can enjoy preferential and flexible interest rates according to their demand. For example, if choosing periodic interest rates, enterprises can borrow at a rate from just 6.99 percent per annum on a term from three to less than six months, and from just 7.99 percent per annum on six-month term. Or enterprises can choose preferential interest rates throughout the loan period with interest rates from only 7.49 percent per annum on a term from three to less than six month or 8.49 percent per annum on six-month term.
Not only helping enterprises to borrow capital, Maritime Bank currently is rather open to enterprises when setting low prepayment penalty. Specifically, if choosing preferential rate from only 7.99 percent per annum (terms from three to less than six months) and terminate the loans soon, enterprises only have to pay 0.5 percent prepayment fee, a very competitive level on the market at present. Explaining about this offer, leader of Maritime Bank said that as enterprises borrow working capital for short-term production and business needs, most of them will choose to terminate the loans immediately after they receive payment. “For enterprises to not suffer disadvantages, we are willing to offer credit package which is not only attractive in terms of interest rates but also prepayment fee”, said Maritime Bank’s representative. Through preferential and flexible credit package, enterprises will have more effective and quick support to accelerate for the coming business season and achieve success in 2018.
