According to the business sentiment survey of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), business performance at commercial banks is forecast to continue its upwards trend this quarter after making some improvements in the first half of the year. Banks also expect better results for the whole of 2016. This survey covered both domestic and foreign banks in Vietnam.
A total of 86.5 percent of the respondents expected better results in 2016 than last year, of which 29 percent anticipated ‘significant improvement'. Compared with the previous survey conducted in the first quarter, banks were also more optimistic about credit growth this year.
Respondents anticipated that the banking system's credit growth would increase to 20.4 percent this year, roughly 3 percent higher than the Government's target, thanks to stronger credit demand and better business conditions. In the survey in January, credit growth was expected at 20.1 percent.
Vietnam has targeted credit growth of 18 percent this year, up from 17.3 percent in 2015, following growth last year that was its strongest since 2007 thanks to the economic growth.
The survey participants also forecasted that capital mobilisation of the entire banking system this year would reach 17.6 percent, of which the rising rate for deposits in the dong is raised to 19.1 percent from 18.4 percent in the previous survey but deposits in the US dollar is lower to minus 0.09 percent from previous 6.9 percent. With optimism about growth prospects and the exciting return of the finance and banking system in 2016, banks also anticipated the industry's labour market would see positive changes next months.
According to the survey, it is expected that 42.4 percent of the respondents would increase their recruitment in the third quarter while 57 percent of them are expecting more recruitment in the whole year of 2016. In the second quarter, 28.2 percent of the respondents reported that they had more employment.
