An employee of Bao Viet Bank with a client at its office in Hanoi (Photo: VNA) The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on April 23 issued Circular No. 02/2023/TT-NHNNstipulating the restructuring of repayment terms and keeping the debt group ofcredit institutions and foreign bank branches unchanged.
The rescheduling of debt repayment terms for customers is implemented from theeffective date of this circular, starting from April 24 to the end of June 30,2024.
Restructured debts include loans and financial leases.
SBV authorised credit institutions and foreign bank branches to take theinitiative in reviewing and assessing the difficulties of borrowers to decideon the restructuring.
The rescheduled terms shall be decided by credit institutions but not exceed 12months from the due date of the balances subject to the restructured repaymentterm.
The just-issued circular, along with other supportive policies, will contributeto removing difficulties for people and businesses, extending the lendingperiod, repaying bank loans, and creating conditions for continued capitalturnover and access to new loans.
In a meeting with representatives of the central bank at the end of March,business leaders all expressed their most pressing need for a suspension ofdebt payments.
Most export items saw a decline in the first quarter, which led to a slowdownin GDP growth.
Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Business Association(HUBA), said: "Since the beginning of the year, the city's main exportindustries have all dropped sharply by 20-40%. Although businesses have limitedexpansion, they still need capital to endure this tough time."
Dinh Trong Thinh, senior lecturer at the Academy of Finance, said that thecircular helps banks have a legal basis to be able to extend, postpone, andcharge off debt groups for businesses, thereby creating favourable conditionsfor businesses to access credit.
However, other financial experts said the rescheduling term of 12 months isshort. Therefore, the period should be extended to support individuals andenterprises in overcoming challenges due to the slowdown of the global economy.
In the middle of last year, a debt restructuring policy was also issued tosupport businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Statistics showed that in the previous debt restructuring for clients affectedby the pandemic, nearly 1.1 million debtors had their repayment termsrestructured, keeping the debt group with an accumulated value of more than 722trillion VND (30.7 billion USD).
Recently, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, in a meeting with the SBV, requestedthe central bank to amend bond regulations and reschedule debts for businesses.
The PM asked for the completion of the draft circular amending Circular 16/2021on credit institutions buying and selling corporate bonds in the direction ofallowing banks to immediately buy corporate bonds.
According to regulations applied in 2021, banks can only buy unlisted corporatebonds 12 months after these bonds are sold and can only repurchase the sametype of bonds that were sold by credit institutions before.
The SBV's recent amendment is to allow credit institutions to buy back unlistedor unregistered bonds on UPCoM that banks sold before the end of 2023./.
VNA
