Banks reduce loan interest rates for customers affected by Typhoon Yagi

Many banks reduced interest rates by 0.5-2% for individuals and businesses that suffered losses due to storm Yagi .

Typhoon Yagi and its aftermath swept through 26 northern provinces and cities and Thanh Hoa on September 7, causing human and property damage. According to a report by the State Bank, statistics from 20 localities show that the affected debt balance is about VND80,000 billion. Of which, in Quang Ninh and Hai Phong, 11,700 customers were affected, with an outstanding debt of about VND23,100 billion.

After request of the State Bank, commercial banks have simultaneously launched policies to support customers affected by typhoon Yagi. In the state-owned banking sector, Vietcombank has reduced interest rates by 0.5% for customers borrowing capital for production and business in areas damaged by the typhoon, from September 6 to the end of this year. This policy applies to existing and new loans. This bank estimates that nearly 20,000 customers with a total outstanding debt of 130,000 billion VND will have their interest rates reduced, equivalent to a support level of 100 billion VND.

At the "big guy" Agribank - a bank specializing in lending to the agricultural sector - Ms. Phung Thi Binh, Deputy General Director, said that about 12,000 customers with outstanding loans of 21,000 billion VND were affected by storms and floods. Ms. Binh said that this number could increase because there are still many areas with traffic cut off, power outages, and communication outages... that the bank has not yet counted.

"Agribank plans to reduce the current interest rate by 0.5 - 2% to support customers, depending on the level of damage," Ms. Binh shared.

As for private banks, they also offer policies to reduce loan interest rates by 0.5-2% per year for individuals and business households in the Northern region.

VPBank directly reduces lending interest rates for all individual customers with existing loans and collateral. Medium and long-term loans will be reduced by 1%, short-term loans by 0.5%. This policy applies from September 13 to the end of this year in Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, Yen Bai...

At TPBank, this bank reduces the interest amount by up to 50% for existing individual customers affected by storms and floods until the end of January next year. The program has a maximum limit of 2,000 billion VND and the bank accepts support requests from customers until the end of October.

BVBank also extended the payment of interest, principal or restructured debt for existing customers who suffered damage due to storms and floods. At the same time, depending on the level of damage caused by storms and floods, the bank reduced interest rates by up to 2% per year, for a maximum of 3 months for customers who are borrowing capital from the bank. For new borrowers, the bank applied a reduction of 0.5%, for a maximum of 3 months compared to the normal interest rate.

From now until the end of the year, MSB also reduces interest rates by 1% for customers who are business households borrowing capital from this bank, with loan terms of up to 60 months.

Currently, the average lending interest rate of banks ranges from 6.3-7.8%. With a reduction of 0.5-2% in annual interest rates from banks, people and businesses affected by Typhoon Yagi have the resources to restore production and business, thereby having a source of money to repay the bank. At last week's meeting, Deputy Governor of the State Bank Dao Minh Tu said that at this time, "banks should not collect debts by any means but must be flexible and become a "support" for businesses."

According to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, about 190,358 hectares of rice were flooded and damaged, mainly in Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Bac Giang, Thai Binh, Hanoi... Over 48,720 hectares of crops were flooded, of which 11,678 hectares were in Hanoi, 3,800 hectares in Nam Dinh, and 3,321 hectares in Hai Phong. Along with that, 3,269 aquaculture cages were damaged and swept away, causing heavy losses to fishermen in Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, and Hai Duong.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment estimates that storm Yagi caused damage of 40,000 billion VND for the northern localities, causing this year's GDP to decrease by 0.15% compared to the previous scenario. For example, Hai Phong - one of the two localities "swept" by storm Yagi - suffered a loss of 10,820 billion VND, equal to 1/10 of the city's total budget revenue in 2023. Quang Ninh - where the storm's eye passed - suffered a loss of about 23,770 billion VND.

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