Techcombank will help Covid-19 affected individuals and enterprises with a VND30 trillion ($1.28 billion) credit relief package including lower interest rates and debt rescheduling.
Vishal Shah, Head of the bank’s Business Banking Division, said the support package was designed to share hardships with customers, ensure their financial stability and continued flow of credit amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
Who are the specific target beneficiaries of this relief package?
The support package will apply for both individual and enterprise customers heavily impacted by Covid-19. It includes interest reductions, introduction of preferential interest rates as well as debt rescheduling at suitable terms, thereby helping our customers mitigate the negative impact on account of Covid-19.
In the initial stage of the Covid-19 outbreak, Techcombank conducted an assessment of industries and enterprises that are most likely to be affected. We believe that enterprises that have significant imports and/or exports to the E.U. and U.S, as well as agriculture, textile and garments, travel and related services have been most impacted. Enterprises that employ large number of expats and foreign employees have also been hurt due to the prevailing travel restrictions.
We have engaged our enterprise customers to understand their needs and difficulties, and implemented policies in line with the State Bank of Vietnam’s direction to support the impacted customers during these unprecedented times.
How will this package be implemented?
The support package is comprehensive, allocating VND10 trillion ($425 million) for individual customers and VND20 trillion for enterprise customers. The package is available for customers meeting conditions prescribed in Circular 01/2020/TT-NHNN.
Techcombank has a robust risk management approach with a multi-level credit risk management model in place, ensuring adequate controls at the time of assessing the loan request as well as strong post lending controls. This facilitates identification of customers with early warning signals, thereby enabling the bank to proactively engage the customers and ensure appropriate risk mitigation.
How does Techcombank plan to reduce operating costs as the central bank has asked, in order to decrease interest rates?
As the number of Covid-19 cases increases, many individuals and enterprises, are opting for cashless payments which can minimise the risk of infection. Techcombank has been a pioneer in digital banking services for individuals and enterprises and we have also offered zero fees for all domestic payments initiated through our online and mobile banking platforms to individual customers since 2016, and enterprise customers since 2018.
Developing and offering leading digital banking solutions and services is one of our key transformation initiatives, with the goal of being convenient, fast, safe and ensuring cost savings for our customers and the bank. Techcombank has continually done two things in tandem: investing in technology to ensure our systems are stable, safe and secure; and reducing operating costs. Since July 2018, we have offered zero fees for all electronic fund transfers for our enterprise customers and were one of the first banks to launch this scheme, thereby ensuring cost savings for our customers.
In March 2020, we deployed our enhanced version of corporate online banking, [email protected] Ebank, whereby our enterprise customers can buy and sell foreign currencies online as well as initiate overseas remittances from the convenience of their offices and homes. Additionally, we are offering up to 50 percent discount on fees for international remittances initiated via [email protected] Ebank.
Are there other supportive measures being taken in response to the Covid-19 crisis, besides the support package?
We are also offering preferential foreign exchange rates. This solution will particularly benefit enterprise customers who are engaged in import-export activities as they can conduct transactions easily and optimise their business costs, thereby reducing difficulties at this time. In a short span of one month since launching this, over 1,000 enterprise customers have successfully registered for this service.
Techcombank will consider reducing lending rates for customers affected by the Covid-19 outbreak by up to 2 percent per annum. We are also committed to securing sufficient credit to support businesses that may have limited to no impact from the epidemic, and will continue to support them for their working capital and business expansion funding needs.
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