Category: Banking and Finance News in Vietnam

This comes after it was announced back in June that the Australian bank would be divesting from the company which VIB’s board of directors reportedly only learned about after the State Bank of Vietnam approved the move. The Commonwealth Bank held a 20 percent stake in the bank at the time.

The rise of embedded finance is significantly reshaping the financial landscape in Vietnam by integrating financial services into non-financial platforms, making them more accessible and user-friendly. This transformation is particularly impactful in a country where traditional banking penetration remains relatively low, but digital adoption is rapidly increasing.

Of note, it’s not clear that all of the credit entering the Vietnam economy is good. Notably, bad debts are rising among Vietnam’s banks with one analysis of 29 of Vietnam’s biggest banks earlier this year, finding that 27 had recorded an increase in bad debt by the end of June. Between them there was VND 46,719 billion or US$1.86 billion in bad debts, an increase of 20.8 percent compared to the end of 2023.

This could be symptomatic of a much bigger problem in that banks are being pressured to lend in order to meet a 14 percent credit growth target set at the beginning of the year which may be contributing to rising bad debts…