Customers are afraid to check and return the interest support money to the bank.

Surplus of more than 37 trillion VND unused

The interest rate support policy (HTLS) from the state budget for loans of enterprises, cooperatives, and business households according to Decree No. 31/2022/ND-CP is one of the policies under the Socio-Economic Recovery and Development Program.

Over the past time, the State Bank (SBV) and commercial banks (CBs) have actively implemented the policy since it was issued.

According to data released by the State Bank of Vietnam, by the end of March 2023, HTLS turnover reached nearly VND 91,000 billion, outstanding HTLS debt reached nearly VND 51,000 billion, and the amount of money supported for customers reached VND 327 billion for nearly 1,900 customers.

Based on the actual implementation, difficulties and obstacles in the implementation process and assessment of the ability to disburse interest rate support, commercial banks have estimated that the accumulated interest rate support amount from the beginning of the program to the end of 2023 will reach about VND 2,570 billion.

Of which, the amount of HTLS in 2022 is about 135 billion VND, the expected amount of HTLS in 2023 is about 2,435 billion VND.

Businesses are not interested in the 2% interest rate support program from the state budget.

Thus, the expected unused amount of the program is 37,430 billion VND (15,900 billion VND in 2022, 21,530 billion VND in 2023).

The above results clearly did not meet expectations. The State Bank said that the implementation of the HTLS credit package from the state budget encountered some difficulties and problems, leading to unsatisfactory results.

There are customers who return interest support money.

Even qualified customers refuse to receive HTLS, mainly due to fear of inspection and audit (especially corporate customers).

Customers consider the benefits of 2% interest rate and the costs of receiving interest rate (tracking records, documents, complying with post-inspection procedures, inspections, audits, and checks by competent state agencies).

In addition, customers are also concerned that in the future, if competent state agencies determine that they must recover the HTLS amount, it will be very difficult to handle because at that time the HTLS amount has been accounted for as profit/dividends to shareholders.

"In fact, some customers have received interest rate support, but have now proactively returned to commercial banks the entire amount of interest that was supported by interest rate support," said the State Bank of Vietnam.

Regarding policy mechanisms, commercial banks and customers face difficulties in assessing the provisions on "recoverability" in Resolution No. 43/2022/QH15 of the National Assembly, and Clause 4, Article 3 of Decree 31/2022/ND-CP of the Government.

Specifically, through reports and actual surveys at commercial banks and customers, the State Bank found that although customers themselves have the ability to repay their debts, they do not dare to affirm that they "have the ability to recover".

The criterion of “resilience” is expressed through quantitative criteria such as: increased revenue, output, and profit, or qualitative criteria such as: assessment of customer business developments and trends.

Meanwhile, assessments based on the above criteria are considered difficult in the current context, especially in the context of the world economy facing many uncertainties, while our country's economy is highly open and business operations are heavily dependent on the international economy.

In case of affirming or evaluating the criteria of revenue, output, and profit to increase but in reality due to the impact of many uncertain factors, these indicators do not increase, commercial banks and customers are afraid that they will be assessed by inspection and examination agencies for taking advantage of policies later.

In addition, some customers had higher revenue and profits during the epidemic period than at present, so it is difficult to assess whether they meet the "recovery" criteria.

That is for corporate customers, while many production and business households do not register their business households according to regulations, so they are not eligible for support.

Customers with financial capacity, good credit history, and preferential interest rates from commercial banks should refuse to receive HTLS because they self-assess that they have received loans at appropriate interest rates according to preferential programs of commercial banks.

In addition, there are some other difficulties such as export customers choosing to borrow USD to take advantage of interest rates and foreign currency revenue, so they are not eligible for interest rate support; some customers are supported under local budget credit programs; difficulties in separating capital costs for multiple industries; some customers have existing outstanding debts in industries eligible for interest rate support but are overdue, so they are temporarily not considered for interest rate support according to regulations...