Although being allowed to apply negotiated lending rate for medium and long term loans, according to banks, applying high lending rate in the current context will be hard to attract customers.
Talking with Dau Tu (Investment) newspaper, Tran Van Vinh, Ocean Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Oceanbank-OCB)'s general director, said that after State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued a Circular No 07/2010/TT-NHNN, the medium and long term lending rate at OCB is ranging between 16-18 percent per year, 6 percent higher than the ceiling lending rate being applied on corporate customers. According to Vinh, after Tet holiday, capital demand of customers tended to increase. However, idle capital sources being poured into banks remain slow.
Statistic from SBV's HCM City Branch showed that in February, total deposits of banks in the city dropped 1.3 percent therefore total outstanding loans also slipped 0.35 percent.
Especially, medium and long term deposits remains difficult. This is one of factors that obstruct the development of medium and long term credit.
At OCB, Vinh said that, the ratio of medium and long term loans accounted for 40 percent of the bank's total outstanding loans. But, the bank's short term capital ratio using for medium and long term loans is at only 20 percent.
"Although being applied negotiation lending rate, developing medium and long term credit is not easy. Because along with seeking potential projects, capital problem is always being considered" explained Vinh.
In addition, according to banks, it is not likely that applying high negotiation lending rate will develop credit. Especially, the competition to occupy market share is becoming tenser. So, applying high lending rate is not likely to be the best solution in current context.
At Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), medium and long term negotiation lending rate applying for enterprises is ranging around 14-16.5 percent per year. As for individual customers, ACB's highest level is 17 percent per year.
In comparison with the period of before Lunar New Year, ACB's negotiation lending rate for individual customers decreased considerably (around 2 percent per year). Notably, ACB said that, as for individual customers having good relation with the bank, the lending rate is only 14 percent per year.
Dang Van Thanh, Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank-STB)'s chair of director board, said that Sacombank's medium and long term lending rate from March 2010 is ranging around 16 percent per year. According to Thanh, allowing banks to apply negotiation lending rate mechanism will create better conditions in developing credit and balancing the deposit rate and lending rate. However, if offering too high lending rate, it will be hard to attract customers.
With the goal of controlling 2010 credit growth at about 25 percent set by the central bank, in 2010, banks will have to build lower credit growth goal than previous year's figure.
Thanh said that, in 2010, Sacombank targets 80 trillion dong of total outstanding loans, growing about 45 percent against the previous year.
Facing with pressures in raising capital when other investment channels have started to attract investors, commercial banks still hope that capital mobilisation will be improved in coming months to have better opportunities in offering negotiation lending rate for medium and long term loans.
According to SBV's statistic, before Tet holiday, available capital of commercial banks was in surplus of some 13 trillion dong and it is now at 30 trillion dong.
"One of monetary policy management solutions in forthcoming time is controlling total payment methods and credit growth at about 25 percent and applying suitable interest rate and forex rate with macroeconomic conditions" said Giau, SBV's governor.
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