Four State-owned commercial joint stock banks in Vietnam have reached a high consensus on the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s policy on reducing interest rates in the coming time.

The information was released by Pham Chi Quang, Director of the SBV’s Monetary Policy Department, at a conference on credit work and the implementation of Circular 02/2023 to discuss solutions to support credit growth this year, held in Hanoi on April 25.

Quang said that in recent times, the Government and the central bank have continuously issued policies to assist businesses and people and remove difficulties in the real estate and corporate bonds markets such as increasing money supply, reducing interest rates, purchasing valuable papers, and continuously reducing interest rates on the open market from 6% to 5% at present.

In addition, the SBV has also bought a large amount of foreign currencies to increase foreign exchange reserves. Since the beginning of this year, it has reduced regulatory interest rates twice, while the interest rates for new loans have decreased by 0.6% compared to the end of 2022 and will be on a downward trend in the coming time.

The SBV’s permanent Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu pointed to abnormally high lending interest rates in some banks such as KienlongBank, VPBank, and VietABank. He demanded those banks to explain the reason behind the high rates to the SBV within next week.

He also requested inspection and supervision agencies to closely monitor the interest rate situation of these banks.

Source: Lao News Agency