Agribank 's agricultural and rural lending ratio in recent years has always accounted for 65 - 70% of Agribank's economic outstanding loans and 1/3 of the country's agricultural and rural credit.

Effective cooperation and development basis from the Loan Group model

Since 2016, Agribank and the Vietnam Farmers' Union have signed an Inter-sectoral Agreement to effectively implement Decree 55/2015/ND-CP dated June 9, 2015 of the Prime Minister on agricultural, farmer and rural development (Decree 55). The goal of the agreement is to help members of the Farmers' Union access loans as quickly as possible and use loans for the right purposes and effectively. Accordingly, the Loan Group model was born and achieved positive results throughout the Agribank system by December 31, 2023.

Currently, Agribank has 92 type I branches implementing cooperation agreements with Farmers' Associations at all levels, establishing nearly 25,000 loan groups in villages, hamlets, communes, wards and towns, with more than 564,000 loan group members. Outstanding loans through loan groups reached VND 84,065 billion, an increase of VND 48,453 billion compared to 2016 and VND 6,597 billion compared to 2022, with an average loan growth of over 16% per year. Average loan balance/member reached VND 100 million; average loan balance/loan group reached VND 2.4 billion; bad debt ratio was always below 0.5%.

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The coordination between Agribank and the Farmers' Association through the Loan Group has created conditions for households who are members of the Farmers' Association, especially for households and individuals in remote, isolated areas with limited access to banks, to access loans and use products and services at Agribank to develop production, business, services, and consumption in order to increase income, improve living standards, and contribute to limiting black credit in society.

Effective coordination between bank staff and loan team leaders in the loan management process helps banks promptly grasp information related to loan safety, loan usage purposes of customers, and limit risks affecting loans. At the same time, reducing the workload for bank staff when making loan plans, disbursing, collecting interest, increasing labor productivity and saving costs in banking operations, is the basis for Agribank to reduce loan interest rates for loan customers.

Continue to coordinate to get capital to the "destination"

In the coming time, Agribank plans to strengthen close coordination with socio -political organizations and authorities at all levels to promote credit policies serving agriculture and rural areas, grasp customers' loan needs, and create conditions for customers to access loans quickly and conveniently.

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The bank also publicly and transparently implements policies, procedures, documents, and lending conditions, while reforming and simplifying administrative procedures to create maximum conditions for customers to access credit sources.

In addition, Agribank will focus capital resources to promptly meet the needs of businesses and households trading, purchasing and exporting key agricultural products, while continuing to implement lending programs according to the linkage model and value chain from production, processing, consumption, and providing payment services in agriculture, especially for agricultural products with high export value.

Towards a sustainable future for Tam Nong

To be more proactive in providing loans quickly and conveniently to people, Agribank has been implementing many positive solutions such as mobile transaction point models using specialized cars, card projects and preferential credit programs specifically for customers in agricultural areas, farmers and rural areas.

In addition, the bank has proactively and effectively implemented 7 policy credit programs and 2 national target programs on new rural construction and sustainable poverty reduction, providing over 200 convenient banking products and services with many distribution channels to meet diverse customer needs, actively contributing to the development of the non-cash payment market, improving access to banking services for the economy, especially in agricultural and rural areas.

With the support and close coordination of local Party committees, authorities and organizations at all levels in general and the Vietnam Farmers' Union in particular, Agribank has been affirming its leading role in the agricultural and rural financial market to develop microfinance for production households and individuals with the goal of implementing the Prime Minister's National Comprehensive Financial Strategy to 2025, with a vision to 2030.

Ngoc Diep