Hanoi (VNA) – Many commercial banks have asked theState Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to expand the credit growth limit as they havealmost used up the assigned quota for the whole year.

Thecentral bank assigns an annual credit growth quota for each bank to controllending and thus ensure money supply and inflation control as targeted by theGovernment.

Chairman of Vietcombank Nghiem Xuan Thanh said the central bank had set thebank’s quota at 16 percent for the whole year, but in the first half of theyear it had already reached 13 percent growth.

Vietcombank has therefore requested a higher credit growth cap to meet risingcapital demands, especially at the end of the year during peak business andspending seasons.

TheVietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) has also used up almostall its entire credit growth quota of 16 percent assigned for 2017. Itsoutstanding loans reached nearly 75.7 trillion VND in H1, up by 15.7 percent.

VIB’sgeneral director Han Ngoc Vu said the bank had asked SBV to expand the creditgrowth limit to provide more scope for lending at the end of the year.

HDBank’scredit growth by the end of June also reached 18 percent, compared with 20 percentassigned by the central bank. The bank’s lending growth in H1 was mainly fromshort-term loans worth 50 trillion VND, accounting for 51.6 percent of thebank’s total outstanding loans.

Outstandingloans of the Vietnam Prosperity Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VPBank) in H1 alsogrew by 12 percent to 162 trillion VND. VPBank has only 4 percent left from theassigned credit growth limit of 16 percent to develop lending in the remainingsix months of 2017.

General Directorof ACB Do Minh Toan also said that in H1 2017, his bank used over half of thecredit growth limit of 16 percent and is waiting for SBV approval for anexpansion. ACB needs more credit growth room as it has been promoting a retailstrategy, which focuses on credit for individual customers and small- andmedium-sized enterprises, Toan said.

According to SBV data, the credit of the entire banking system grew 9.06 percentin the first half of 2017, the highest level in the past six years.

At arecent meeting, the Prime Minister asked SBV to increase the credit growthtarget to 20 percent from the current 18 percent cap, as planned previously, tosupport the country’s economic growth.

Bankingexpert Bui Quang Tin said the current credit growth rate is in line with theSBV’s direction. He forecast that in the remaining months of 2017, SBV willstill control lending growth, but will also make flexible adjustments toachieve the targets set by the National Assembly and the Government.-VNA