VBSP performs stably and efficiently amid pandemic

Nguyen Thi Hong, State Bank Governor and VBSP chairwoman giving her remarks at the bank’s third-quarter review meeting

Addressing the third-quarter regular meeting of the Board of Management at the VBSP, State Bank Governor cum chairwoman of the Board of Management at VBSP Nguyen Thi Hong noted that in Q3 and the first nine months of the year, the country faced myriad hardships due to COVID-19 which had badly influenced the bank’s operation.

Determined to ensure safety by giving priority to pandemic prevention and containment, VBSP has deployed a raft of measures consistently from the central to grassroots level, strictly adhering to guidance from the Party Secretariat, the government, the prime minister, and relevant management agencies.

During the period, the employees in entire VBSP system had made strides to effectively handle all assigned tasks.

Accordingly, as of September 30, 2021 total policy credit sources amounted to VND254.356 trillion($11.05 billion), an excess of VND20.811 trillion ($904.83 million) compared to end of 2020. Authorised capital sources earmarked to lend needy people and other policy beneficiaries in the province reached VND24.375 trillion ($1.06 billion), up VND4.06 trillion ($176.5 million) compared to 2020.

Total outstanding balances from policy credit programmes came to VND242.292 trillion ($10.53 billion), up VND16.095 trillion ($699.78 million) compared to end of 2020 with more than 6.4 million needy households and other policy beneficiaries getting loans. In which, the balance from credit programmes assigned by the government reached VND207.218 trillion ($9 billion), equal to 82 per cent of the full-year plan.

Notably, right after the government deployed its policies to support people and businesses hit by COVID-19, VBSP has instructed units in the whole system to lend 921 employers with VND462 billion ($20.1 million) sum to pay salary for 130,990 labourers affected by COVID-19.

Total lending revenue in the three quarters reached VND61.233 trillion ($2.66 billion) committed to more than 1.5 million local needy households and other policy beneficiaries. Policy credit sources have helped businesses reboot production and business, creating jobs for nearly 337,000 labourers, and helping nearly 16,700 pupils and students in difficult situation to continue study.

The sum also went to building over 1.1 million water supply works and latrine facilities in rural areas, as well as building 5,200 housings for needy households and social housing under government Decree 100, and more.

Aside from the rising balance from policy credit programmes, the debt quality was kept stable. Accordingly, overdue and frozen debts accounted for 0.7 per cent of total, with overdue debts representing merely 0.25 per cent.

In the rest of 2021, VBSP chairwoman Nguyen Thi Hong asked the Board of Management to focus on ensuring effective implementation of credit plan for investment development in 2021 which was assigned by the prime minister and continue raising capital from assorted sources to keep abreast with people's burgeoning demands.

Priority shall be given to receiving authorised capital from the local budget and deposits from diverse individuals and organisations, in parallel with efficient debt collection to enrich capital sources.

This aims to ensure the effective implementation of Directive No.40-CT/TW and Conclusion No.06-KL/TW of the Secretariat, and Decision No.1630/QD-TTg of the prime minister, focusing on strengthening capital mobilisation in line with the 5-year Socio-economic Development Plan 2021-2025 and 10-year Socio-economic Development Strategy 2021-2030.

The units in the VBSP system also need to cooperate closely with local governments, socio-political organisations to keep tabs of the disaster situation and losses caused by COVID-19 to be able to timely introduce remedy measures, thus supporting needy households and other policy beneficiaries to stabilise life, production, and business.

The chairwoman also mandated the Board of Management to survey, study and present measures to support repatriate labourers post-pandemic; consolidate and improve credit quality at still low-efficient branches; study and develop state-of-the-art technology and banking management platforms, from there recommending ways for implementation in a bid to satisfy ever-increasing requirements for financial and banking services in the society.