Efforts to reduce lending rates

Exchange rate pressure and impacts from external factors make it difficult for capital mobilization costs to decrease deeply, but banks are required to reduce costs in order to further reduce lending interest rates.

Lending interest rates continue to decrease, contributing to supporting businesses and individuals in developing production and business.

Continue the downtrend

Credit institutions forecast that the VND deposit and lending interest rates from now until the end of 2025 will basically remain unchanged compared to the end of 2024, according to the results of a survey of credit institutions recently released by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV). The SBV will continue to implement credit management solutions in accordance with the macroeconomic situation, inflation developments and the economy 's capital absorption capacity, contributing to promoting economic growth in 2025.

According to the SBV leader, lending interest rates have continued to trend downward since the beginning of the year. The new average lending interest rate is at 6.23%/year, down 0.7%/year compared to the end of 2024, thereby contributing to supporting businesses and individuals to use loans to develop production and business.

Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong said that the banking sector is striving to further reduce lending interest rates, contributing to promoting growth. Monetary policy needs to be closely coordinated and synchronized with fiscal policy and other macroeconomic policies, in order to promote sustainable economic growth associated with macroeconomic stability, control inflation and ensure major balances of the economy.

Specifically, regarding interest rates, the SBV continues to maintain the operating interest rate at a low level to guide the reduction of lending interest rates, creating favorable conditions for businesses and people to access capital. The SBV also directs credit institutions to reduce costs, promote technology application, digital transformation and implement other solutions in an effort to reduce lending interest rates.

In the interbank market, the State Bank has flexibly operated open market operations, in line with supply and demand developments in the currency market. Regarding exchange rates, the State Bank has also flexibly operated, in line with the market situation and macroeconomic factors. In the coming time, the State Bank will direct credit institutions to continue to reduce costs, maintain stable deposit interest rates, strive to further reduce lending interest rates, and create room to support production and business.

VCBS forecasts that deposit interest rates may stabilize in the coming time, as the State Bank continues to operate interest rates stably to ensure they are consistent with the general interest rates of the economy. Lending interest rates will remain low to support businesses in line with the Government's direction. However, businesses with weak credit histories may still have difficulty accessing capital and have to accept higher interest rates.

Since the beginning of the third quarter of 2025, some banks have slightly increased their deposit interest rates, but financial experts say that the input interest rate level is unlikely to increase much.

According to Dr. Nguyen Tri Hieu, a banking expert, interest rates are unlikely to increase as the Government and the State Bank of Vietnam continue to require banks to make efforts to reduce costs to reduce interest rates. Moreover, in the current market context, when investment channels (gold, exchange rates, stocks, real estate) still have potential risks, idle money sources are still cautious and choose to save. In fact, in recent times, although bank interest rates are low, the amount of people's bank deposits has still increased to a record level.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam, by the end of May 2025, deposits from both individual customers and economic organizations at credit institutions reached more than VND 15.3 million billion, an increase of nearly 1% compared to April 2025. Of which, deposits from residents reached more than VND 7.6 million billion, an increase of 7.61% compared to the beginning of the year (in May 2025 alone, it increased by about VND 65,427 billion). Meanwhile, deposits from enterprises reached more than VND 7.7 million billion, an increase of 0.97% compared to the end of 2024 (an increase of more than VND 116,370 billion compared to the end of April 2025).

Capital demand at the end of the year

Credit accelerated in the first half of 2025, when outstanding loans in the whole economy increased by nearly 10% and at banks, there was a significant growth rate of 7% to nearly 20%. At the same time, credit growth was led by corporate credit, thanks to the low lending interest rate level, while retail credit growth slowed due to weak credit demand.

MBS forecasts that credit growth will reach about 17-18% by the end of 2025. Lending activities in the second half of 2025 are likely to be driven by three main factors.

The first is to accelerate public investment disbursement. According to data from the MBS report, by the end of June 2025, public investment disbursement reached VND 268,000 billion, an increase of 42.3% over the same period, completing only 29.6% of the annual plan. MBS expects that the disbursement progress will accelerate in the second half of 2025.

Second, Resolution 68-NQ/TW enhances the role and position of the private economic sector. The private sector's contribution to GDP is expected to reach 55-58% and the number of enterprises to reach 2 million by the end of 2030.

Regarding real estate, MSB assessed that Resolution 68-NQ/TW has effectively removed long-standing legal and administrative bottlenecks. Key measures include shifting from pre-inspection to post-inspection; encouraging lending based on cash flow and new development models; and clearly distinguishing between corporate legal liability and individual criminal liability.

The third is to move towards eliminating the “credit room”. According to MBS experts, this will help banks with a good foundation in terms of Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), low cost of capital and Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR) to improve their competitiveness.

However, MBS analysts forecast that by the fourth quarter of 2025, deposit interest rates may increase slightly as credit growth tends to increase sharply towards the end of the year. Based on the above factors, MBS forecasts that 12-month deposit interest rates of major commercial banks will fluctuate around 4.7% in 2025.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, Executive Director of the Faculty of Finance and Banking (Nguyen Trai University), the interest rate trend from now until the end of 2025 will remain at a reasonably low level, as long as macroeconomic conditions such as inflation, exchange rates, and banking system liquidity remain under control.

Mr. Huy said that the average lending interest rate is currently only around 6.23%/year, the lowest in many years, showing that the monetary policy space has been fully exploited. Therefore, the room for further reduction in the remaining time of the year is very limited and caution is needed because the interest rate gap between USD and VND is narrowing, which could put pressure on the exchange rate. At the present stage, interest rate policy needs to be managed in a stable, flexible and cautious manner.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/no-luc-giam-lai-suat-cho-vay-d343794.html