Vietnam’s banks to cut lending rates by 2.5% to back coronavirus-hit firms

During a Wednesday meeting with the State Bank of Vietnam’s leaders, representatives of several local banks agreed to implement debt restructuring for businesses facing difficulties.

Vietcombank said it is launching a credit package worth VND30 trillion ($1.26 billion) with 2-2.5% interest rates lower than market rates. The new rates should be about 4.5-5% a year.

This lender will also reduce interest rates by 1-1.5% for existing loans.

Vietinbank also considers reducing lending rates by about 2% for businesses and people, and may be higher than 2% per year, said Le Duc Tho, chairman of the bank's Board of Directors.

BIDV and Agribank have been deploying the same measures to support businesses.

From February 23 to the end of March, VietinBank has reduced the lending interest rate by 0.5-1.5% a year for nearly 3,000 customers with a total outstanding loan of VND60,000 billion ($1.52 billion).

According to the central bank’s preliminary estimation, about VND926 trillion ($39.2 billion) outstanding loan was affected by the crisis, accounting for about 14.27% of the total outstanding loans of these credit institutions.

► Vietnam central bank orders lenders to cut costs, bonus, cash dividends to reduce interest rates

► World Bank slashes Vietnam’s 2020 economic growth forecast to 4.9% on virus pressure