Deposit growth lags behind credit in 2022

State-owned lenders Vietcombank, VietinBank and BIDV last year all posted the highest credit growth rate in the last three years.

Vietcombank, the most profitable lender, gave out more than VND1,100 trillion ($46.37 billion) in loans, up 19% from 2021.

The size of VietinBank’s loans increased by 12% to VND1,200 trillion, while BIDV’s grew 13% to VND1,500 trillion.

Private lenders such as HDBank and MB posted growth of 30% and 27% respectively, higher than in 2021 and 2020. VPBank posted 23% growth, a three-year high.

Deposit growth, however, lagged behind.

Vietcombank’s deposit growth was recorded at 9%, while VietinBank and BIDV posted growths of just 8% and 7% respectively.

HDBank’s deposit growth was 18%, and MB’s was 15%.

VPBank was the only exception with its deposit growth exceeding credit growth by 2% points.

Nguyen The Minh, director of analysis at Yuanta Securities, said that businesses often put cash into banks for unexpected expenses and get loans for normal expenses.

But last year, especially in the second half, many companies had to withdraw their money to cover operational costs as they could not raise money from other channels, such as bonds, while accessing credit was difficult, he said.

“Companies needed capital but they could not get loans, and that was why they had to withdraw their savings to cover expenses,” said Minh. “This affected bank deposit mobilization.”

This is also shown in a drop in the current account savings account (CASA), which is the money banks get from customer payment accounts that he or she can withdraw at anytime.

Techcombank’s CASA over total deposit ratio dropped from 47% to 34% during the year.

MB saw the ratio decline from 40% to 37%.