The Department of Statistical Forecasting of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has just released the latest survey results, although credit growth rate was less than the previous year, most credit institutions (CIs), 88 percent, informed that the business situation in 2018 was improved, of which 35 percent said it was much improved.
The labour market and employment of the banking sector continued to be active with 70.93 percent of CIs reporting labour increase in 2018 compared to 2017; 20.93 percent of CIs maintained the number of employees; and 8.14 percent of CIs cut the labour force, higher than the expected rate of 3.2 percent.
It is expected that by 2019 end, compared to 2018 end, 76.74 percent of CIs will increase number of labour; 18.61 percent are expected to maintain their labour force, and 4.65 percent to reduce the labour force in 2019.
CIs evaluated that the demand for banking products and services rapidly increased in 2018, and are expected to continue growing with faster pace in 2019, in which borrowing demand to have the largest growth. 77.6 percent of CIs expect customers’ demand for banking services to increase in 2019 compared to 2018, in which the demand for loans of most CIs is expected to increase sharply (80.7 percent), followed by demand for deposits and payment services with expected rates of 66 percent and 64 percent respectively.
The overall risk of customer groups in 2018 was assessed to be more stable than that of 2017 with 66 percent of CIs judging it to be at normal level, 16.5 percent noted a slight increase, and 17.7 percent reported a reduction. In 2019, 63.5 percent of CIs identify the overall risk of customer groups to remain stable, 15.3 percent of CIs forecast a decrease, and 21.2 percent of CIs are afraid of risks increase.
On the basis of objective and subjective factors, 86 percent of CIs assessed their business situation to be improved in 2018 compared to 2017 and forecasted in 2019, about 88 percent of CIs expected the business situation continues to improve compared to 2018, of which about 35 percent of CIs forecast that the business situation will “improve much”.
It is forecasted that in 2019, the majority of CIs expect liquidity of the banking system to continue to be positive for both dong and foreign currencies. CIs reported that non-performing loans (NPLs) over outstanding loans were kept low in 2018 and tended to decrease in 2019.
The levels of deposit and loans interest rates are expected to maintain stable in 2019.
On the ability of capital mobilisation in 2019, CIs expect capital mobilisation to grow at an average rate of 13.9 percent, in which the growth rate of dong capital mobilisation will increase faster than foreign currency mobilisation.
Regarding credit growth in 2019, CIs expect credit balance of the whole banking system to grow at an average of 15.27 percent by 2019 end, in which loans in dong is always expected to grow faster than loans in foreign currencies.
