(kontumtv.vn) – Since the beginning of 2025, a number of banks have launched preferential credit packages to support customers as well as stimulate credit demand during the peak shopping period of Tet. With a GDP growth rate of over 8%, banks are expected to have a lot of room to boost credit this year.

Photo caption
The Soc Trang branch of the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies supports investment capital for production and business for poor and near-poor households in the locality. Photo: Tuan Phi/VNA

Preferential interest rate from only 3.5%/year

The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) has just announced a preferential credit package of up to VND110,000 billion to support individual customers. This is considered a strategic step of this bank in stimulating consumption, promoting production and business, especially during the peak shopping period of the Lunar New Year.

According to Agribank, in this credit package, the bank has reserved 30,000 billion VND for loans serving daily life, with short-term loan interest rates starting from only 4.5%/year, up to 1% lower than the normal interest rate, and 6%/year for medium and long-term loans applied in the first phase.

To support production and business and motivate domestic consumption, Agribank also allocated 70,000 billion VND in preferential loans in this credit package to support customers in investing and expanding production activities.

In addition, Agribank designed a VND50,000 billion short-term loan package to meet the quick working capital needs of individuals and small businesses with interest rates; a VND20,000 billion package for medium and long-term loans with interest rates from 6%/year, to support individual customers in implementing large investment plans or expanding long-term business operations.

Notably, green, environmentally friendly projects will be lent at an interest rate of only 3.5% per year. This is part of Agribank’s green credit package worth VND10,000 billion, for individual customers who are bold enough to invest in green fields, which often require high start-up costs.

Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) has also just announced the implementation of a preferential loan program with interest rates starting from only 4.6%/year for individual customers borrowing short-term production and business capital. Notably, the scale of this credit package is up to VND 250,000 billion, applied by the bank from January 1, 2025.

Not only the above two banks, many other commercial banks are also planning to disburse capital from the beginning of the year with preferential credit packages for each priority customer group. In 2025, the State Bank expects credit growth for the entire system in 2025 to be about 16%, an increase of about 1% compared to the results in 2024.

According to Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Dao Minh Tu, the credit growth target for this year was set based on the assessment of the results of the past year and the economic growth target set by the National Assembly and the Government is striving to achieve over 8%. However, this will depend on actual conditions and the economy's ability to absorb capital.

Previously, at the end of December 2024, the State Bank sent a document to banks to publicly and transparently announce the principles for assigning credit growth in 2025. This helps commercial banks have great initiative in implementing business activities during the year.

The State Bank also said it will closely monitor actual developments to proactively, flexibly, promptly and effectively manage credit growth of banks. Thereby, it will help provide sufficient credit capital to serve the economy and ensure system safety, in conjunction with the priority of promoting economic growth, stabilizing the macro economy and controlling inflation.

Where does the credit growth momentum come from?

At a recent investor conference, Mr. Pham Nhu Anh, General Director of the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB), said that in 2025, the bank will reserve at least 50% of its credit room for the retail segment and small and medium enterprises; the rest will be allocated to large enterprises. Among them, enterprises in priority sectors will still be focused on promoting lending by this bank.

According to Mr. Pham Nhu Anh, the strategy of focusing on the retail segment is planned by this bank for the development period of 2022 - 2026. However, in the past two years, retail credit growth has been quite slow, due to the frozen real estate market, people's demand for buying houses has slowed down, while the economy is still difficult, so people also limit investment. Therefore, in the coming time, MB will prioritize focusing on developing the retail segment to ensure the proposed strategy.

MB leaders also said that by 2025, the economy is expected to improve, with the Government expecting growth of 8-10%. If GDP growth is high, banks will have more room to lend. MB's credit growth is expected to reach 25-26% this year.

From an expert perspective, Mr. Michael Kokalari, Director of Macroeconomic Analysis and Market Research at VinaCapital, commented that in 2025, banks will still be the beneficiaries of the shift to GDP growth thanks to internal factors. Because banks finance almost all sectors of the domestic economy; at the same time, they also lend a lot to real estate and consumption - sectors expected to help boost the economy in 2025.

According to VinaCapital, the government will take specific measures to boost the real estate market. Mortgage loan growth could double from 10% in 2024 to nearly 20% this year. The recovery in the real estate market will also boost consumer confidence, thereby leading to high-margin consumer lending segments such as auto loans and installment purchases.

“The government plans to support GDP growth in 2025 by boosting public investment, which is expected to further expand lending opportunities for banks. The combination of boosting public investment, real estate and consumption will contribute to boosting credit growth and improving the asset quality of banks,” said Mr. Michael Kokalari.

VinaCapital forecasts that credit growth across the system will remain at around 15% in 2025. Of this, lending growth in the high-margin individual customer segment is expected to accelerate from around 12% in 2024 to 15% this year. VinaCapital also expects banks to boost lending to infrastructure projects and real estate businesses, especially as the market continues to recover.

The results of the survey on business trends of credit institutions recently announced by the Department of Forecasting and Statistics (State Bank of Vietnam) show that credit demand in 2025 is expected to increase for all sectors, subjects, currencies and terms. In particular, the industrial and construction development sector has the highest rate of credit institutions forecasting an increase in capital demand; followed by loans for living, consumption and trade - service loans and loans for agricultural, forestry and fishery development.

Credit institutions expect wholesale and retail, import and export, and loans for living and consumption to be the three sectors with the highest credit growth this year.

According to banks, economic growth, interest rates, changes in investment demand for production and business, and improved service quality are factors that positively affect the increase in credit demand of corporate customers in the first 6 months of the year and the whole year of 2025.

In addition, improvements in lending products, conditions and procedures of credit institutions are also forecast to have a great impact on the increase in loan demand of individual customers in 2025...

Hua Chung (Vietnam News Agency)