The State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) said in a report that big banks have got stuck in inefficient financial investments, according a Thanh Nien newspaper report.
The SAV has sent the National Assembly results of its audits of financial reports and activities concerning the management and use of State capital and assets in 2016 of the State Bank of Vietnam and nine financial institutions and banks.
According to the report, Oceanbank failed to get dividends from 28 investments in 2016. It had to set aside VND198 billion for risk provisions for 14 investments in loss-making entities at the end of 2016.
Vietcombank invested VND204.97 billion, or over $9.6 million, in a money transfer firm, VND135.15 billion in a fund management firm, and VND270 billion in an insurance firm, and incurred accumulated losses of $5.35 million, VND12.8 billion and VND17.8 billion respectively. The bank also poured VND123.45 billion into Saigon Bank and received a dividend of just 4 percent in 2016, and VND70.95 billion into Cement Finance Company and did not get a dividend in 2016.
BIDV put VND3.13 trillion in three subsidiaries and VND280.2 billion in 12 long-term investments, but got no dividends. BIDV Securities Company racked up losses of VND239.62 billion due to poor stock investments. BIDV Insurance Corporation has invested in shares of Green Indochina Development Company since 2009 and set aside risk provisions equivalent to 65.2 percent of the investment value.
Vietnam Debt and Asset Trading Corporation (DATC) has six out of 34 enterprises incurring accumulated losses and nine enterprises facing stagnant activities or suspending operations. Its dividend in 2016 was a mere 2 percent of investment capital and risk provisions were 36.1 percent of the investment value.
Co-opBank also had difficulty recovering a VND585 billion deposit put at Handico Finance Company in 2011.
The State Audit also pointed out huge high-risk debts at major banks.
In particular, Vietcombank has a group of clients trading in mobile phone refill cards whose original outstanding loans amounted to VND251.7 billion and interest totalled VND85.7 billion as of end-2016. Many large clients of VietinBank are also in trouble and have had their debts restructured. Most of them are the suspended projects in the industry-trade sector. Debts of such clients totalled VND32 trillion.
According to auditing results, most commercial banks did not strictly observe the lending procedures such as inadequately assessing applications and supervising the use of loans, not conducting regular assessments of collateral, and inappropriately categorising debts.
As of the end of 2016, total bad debts and those potentially turning bad amounted to VND485.3 trillion, equivalent to 8.81 percent of total outstanding loans, according to the State Audit.
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