Commercial banks still ailing from bad debts curseDespite significant efforts to resolve bad debts over the course of 2017, commercial banks will likely carry a total VND60 trillion ($2.64 billion) of bad debts into 2018. On December 31, 2017, collective bad debts at 13 randomly-surveyed commercial banks, including Vietinbank, Saigon Hanoi Commercial Bank (SHB), VPBank, Techcombank, and TPBank, mounted up to VND60.533 trillion ($2.66 billion), which was a 0.7 per cent rise against early 2017. Several market analysts asserted that, "Despite the favourable conditions provided by Resolution No.42/2017/QH14 on handling bad debts in credit institutions, commercial banks will likely carry a huge volume of unresolved bad debts from 2017 into 2018." 42/2017/QH14 on handling bad debts in credit institutions, commercial banks will likely carry a huge volume of unresolved bad debts from 2017 into 2018. Until the end of 2017, Asia Commercial Bank (HNX: ACB) was reported to have the lowest proportion of bad debts (0.7 per cent) among the randomly surveyed commercial banks.

Source: VietNamNet News March 23, 2018 07:18 UTC