The business environment of the banking and finance sectors improved inthe first three months of this year compared with last year, accordingto the State Bank of Vietnam.
The central bank announced thislast week, citing its latest quarterly survey of the business trends ofcredit institutions and foreign bank branches in Vietnam for the secondquarter.
About 53 percent of the lenders said that their businesssituation was currently "good", up from 29 percent recorded in theprevious survey; while 46.5 percent said it was "normal".
They said they would concentrate on human resource training and upgradation of technology in the coming months.
Theinstitutions said that their customers had revived their financialcapacity. With economic recovery now certain, they anticipated stiffcompetition among lenders in the near future.
Most of the lendersassessed the customers' demand for banking services to be "normal" or"high". A majority of them predicted that the deposit and lendinginterest rates would further ease this year, and 40 percent said theyplanned to reduce service charges.
Almost all of the lenders saidthat they had no intention of downsizing staff this year, and over athird said that they were short of staff and might recruit more people.Only 7.4 percent cut down employees in the first quarter.
Mostestimated that they were having "good" liquidity for both dong andforeign currencies, and hoped to maintain that throughout this year.They expected deposits and loans to grow at a rate between 10 and 20percent in 2014.
The majority of the credit institutions assessedthe risks involved for their customers to be "normal" and said the risklevels were tending to decline.
But the lenders remainedcautious about the future of the banking sector, as they didn'tanticipate any breakthroughs for an economic rally this year.-VNA
The central bank announced thislast week, citing its latest quarterly survey of the business trends ofcredit institutions and foreign bank branches in Vietnam for the secondquarter.
About 53 percent of the lenders said that their businesssituation was currently "good", up from 29 percent recorded in theprevious survey; while 46.5 percent said it was "normal".
They said they would concentrate on human resource training and upgradation of technology in the coming months.
Theinstitutions said that their customers had revived their financialcapacity. With economic recovery now certain, they anticipated stiffcompetition among lenders in the near future.
Most of the lendersassessed the customers' demand for banking services to be "normal" or"high". A majority of them predicted that the deposit and lendinginterest rates would further ease this year, and 40 percent said theyplanned to reduce service charges.
Almost all of the lenders saidthat they had no intention of downsizing staff this year, and over athird said that they were short of staff and might recruit more people.Only 7.4 percent cut down employees in the first quarter.
Mostestimated that they were having "good" liquidity for both dong andforeign currencies, and hoped to maintain that throughout this year.They expected deposits and loans to grow at a rate between 10 and 20percent in 2014.
The majority of the credit institutions assessedthe risks involved for their customers to be "normal" and said the risklevels were tending to decline.
But the lenders remainedcautious about the future of the banking sector, as they didn'tanticipate any breakthroughs for an economic rally this year.-VNA
