Interest Rates Hit Bottom, Banks Boost Credit
Thanks to reduced operating costs and decreased deposit interest rates, banks have been increasing their low-interest credit packages in early March 2024 to support production, business, housing, and consumer needs….
Recently, SHB has increased the “Advantageous Loan – Prosperous Dragon” credit limit from 18,000 billion VND to 23,000 billion VND to help individual customers supplement capital reserves for goods, production, and business to serve the market, as well as prepare money for shopping, payment, and expenses …; at the same time, the long-term loan interest rate has decreased to 5.79%, and the short-term loan interest rate has decreased to 6.39%. Customers also enjoy additional benefits such as: Maximum credit card limit up to 200 million VND, 2% reduction in interest rate for unsecured loans for capital supplementation purposes …
This bank is also allocating 10,000 billion VND for business loans with an interest rate reduced to only 5.8% per year and a credit package of 1,000 billion VND for businesses with a demand for car loans at a preferential interest rate of only 6.5% per year. This interest rate applies to new loans in 2024 and lasts until December 31, 2024.
Representatives of SHB leaders said that in 2024, SHB will focus on promoting credit growth in green credit, small and medium-sized enterprises, and other priority sectors as directed by the Government.
Meanwhile, ACB offers home loans at around 7-8% per year or fixed at 9% per year for the first two years. OCB applies a preferential interest rate of 7-8% per year, and if there is no promotion, the loan interest rate is around 10% per year. The home loan interest rate in January 2024 at VPBank is 5.9% per year. HDBank applies a preferential interest rate of 6.8% per year for home loans. MSB offers home loans at an interest rate of 6.8% per year…
In the state-owned banking block, Agribank allocates 10,000 billion VND for consumer loans to meet living needs with interest rates from 6% per year for loans over 12 months for individual customers borrowing capital for essential needs such as buying houses, land, building new houses, repairing houses, and other consumer purposes. Individual customers borrowing capital to buy houses will be applied with interest rates from 7% per year in the first 12 months by BIDV.
According to the analysis of economists, with the new credit growth control mechanism of the State Bank, the access to credit for businesses in 2024 will change in a more positive direction, and the current interest rate will no longer be a barrier for customers to access bank capital, as the current interest rate level has become quite low. Specifically, interest rates for loans in all terms and sectors have decreased by about 2.5% compared to the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. In that, interest rates for loans in priority sectors as specified by the Government only go down to less than 4% per year.
Credit Activities Go Digital
In addition to implementing large-scale low-interest credit packages, many banks are also intensifying digital transformation, applying electronic means to many stages of the lending process to increase convenience and customer experience, shorten service time, and make it easier for customers to access capital sources.
As one of the typical banks in the digital transformation, SHB has introduced a series of digital service products implemented end-to-end, such as: Online Overdraft, Loan against Savings Book, Online Credit Card Application… Loan registration together with appraisal and approval process are completely digitalized, shortening the process from several days to just a few hours or minutes.
A series of products – digital services are being digitized by SHB to enhance user experience
In terms of digital service products, Online Overdraft is a product that individual customers prefer to experience 100% on the digital platform SHB Mobile, SHB SAHA and easy registration for opening an overdraft takes less than 01 minute, anytime – anywhere 24/7.
Specifically, when logging into SHB Mobile or SHB SAHA, in just 1 minute, individuals can easily register for overdraft loans, loans against savings books, or apply for credit cards. The product is considered one of the steps to complete the ecosystem for personal financial transactions, creating a closed loop from opening an account to issuing and managing financial products such as payment cards, credit cards, or loans.
SHB is also deploying the RLOS system in the loan process. Customer loan applications will be processed accurately and smoothly on the RLOS system as quickly as possible, improving the customer experience when using banking services.
For business customers, SHB is currently one of the pioneering banks in the market in fully digitizing the loan process with super-fast loan approval time within 24 hours. Specifically, many financial transactions that previously required a visit to the transaction point can now be performed online, such as: monitoring the status of loan registration processing, disbursement, opening accounts, international payment, and foreign currency trading… In addition, by using the digital bank SHB Corporate online, customers can apply for loans or use pre-approved overdrafts online with attractive unsecured credit limits up to 5 billion VND.
With the efforts of the banking system in general, and SHB in particular, in promoting low-interest credit into priority areas and digitizing lending activities, along with the synchronous participation of all levels and sectors, it is expected that credit growth will be positive, resolving difficulties in capital for people and businesses, and positively contributing to economic development.
