On November 12, 2021 afternoon, in Quang Ninh province, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and the Lao Dong (Labour) Newspaper jointly organized a virtual Workshop on “black credit” traps and enhancing official credit channels. The Workshop was attended by SBV First Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu; Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh, Vice Chairperson of Quang Ninh Provincial People's Committee; Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hien, Editor-in-Chief of the Lao Dong (Labour) Newspaper; representatives from the SBV entities, the Ministry of Public Security, several commercial banks, financial specialists, legal experts, etc.
First Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu speaks at the Workshop
Speaking at the Workshop, SBV Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu shared that the formulation and implementation of the legal regulations against “black credit” activities has achieved lots of positive results, helping to strengthen the state management. The credit institutions have diversified their approaches to expand and improve the credit quality through close coordination with the local authorities, social and political organizations. Credit for the economy, especially credit for vulnerable subjects who may otherwise become victims of "black credit" has been maintained at a relatively high growth rate. The banking sector has made strong efforts to expand the networks to provide timely banking products and services, focusing especially on measures to enhance the accessibility to bank loans, promptly supporting COVID-affected customers; thereby, enhancing official credit channels, greatly contributing to controlling “black credit”.
At the Workshop, the representative from the Ministry of Public Security shared that after two years implementing Directive No.12/CT dated April 25, 2019, the crime situation and law violations related to “black-credit” activities has been controlled, but still poses some hidden complicated developments, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused great losses in all aspects of the socio-economic life.
Sharing about the banking sector’s measures of controlling “black credit”, Ms. Ha Thi Thu Giang, Deputy Director General of the SBV Department of Credit for Economic Sectors, stated that from the beginning of 2019, the SBV has promulgated 85 legal documents, including many amendments of the existing legal documents, as well as new legal regulations aimed to enhance the accessibility to official credit channels, supporting the people and enterprises to access bank loans. The SBV has also issued and implemented many important policies to facilitate digital banking transformation, enhance the technological application in the banking services (eKYC, Mobile-Money, cashless payments, Regulatory Sandbox, etc.).
In addition, the SBV has also directed the credit institutions to expand and diversify banking products and services, reduce the interest rates, simplify lending procedures in order to strengthen the accessibility to official credit channels, especially for the people in the remote and rural areas.
An overview of the Workshop
With a view to developing the banking networks, since 2019, the SBV has granted permits for the establishment of 29 new branches and representative offices of the credit institutions. Up to now, Vietnam's banking system has in total 124 credit institutions and nearly 1,200 people’s credit funds. Along with that, the SBV has also conducted several measures to improve the communication activities to raise people's awareness of the lending mechanisms and policies, as well as the banking services; organized the education programs on the mass media like "Wise money", “Holding the purse-strings” in order to disseminate knowledge to the people and help them to access official banking services.
Under the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has directly affected many people's income, especially the low-income groups such as manual workers, seasonal workers, small businesses, etc., complicating the "black credit" situation. In that context, the SBV and the entire banking industry have actively implemented several solutions to remove difficulties in accessing credit for the people and enterprises, helping the to restore their production and business operations. The SBV has thrice cut down the key interest rates, facilitating the credit institutions to access the SBV's financial resources at a lower cost; issued Circular No. 01/2020/TT-NHNN, Circular No.03/2021/TT-NHNN and Circular No. 14/2021/TT-NHNN in order to create necesssary legal frameworks for the credit institutions to reduce the lending interest rates, reschedule debt payments, reduce the interest and fees and maintain the debt classifications, thereby contributing to supporting the COVID-affected customers.
Mr. Le Anh Tuan, Deputy General Director of the Credit Information Center of Vietnam (CIC) also shared that in order to support the people and businesses to access bank loans, the CIC has established a Borrowers' Connection Portal at https://cic.gov.vn. The Portal allows people and businesses to register their credit needs and look up their credit information. After over two years of implementation, the Portal has become a reliable bridge between the people and the credit institutions, and has achieved initial significant outcomes for both customers and the credit institutions.
The participants at the Workshop also discussed and made several recommendations on the measures of enhancing the cooperation among the relevant ministries and agencies to prevent “black credit” and enhance the official credit channels.
Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu delivers his concluding remarks at the Workshop
In his concluding remarks at the Workshop, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu requested the banking sector to continue to accelerate the implementation of the measures to resolve difficulties for the COVID-affected customers, enhance the administrative procedure reform in order to facilitate the people and enterprises to get access to bank loans; strengthen the dissemination and communication of information on the various mechanisms, policies, programs, banking products and services, and warning people about the “black credit” traps, etc.
Le Hang