Vietnam banking sector undergoes regulatory and liquidity shifts

Vietnam's banking sector is undergoing significant regulatory and structural shifts. The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has introduced new measures to combat online fraud. Starting March 1, 2027, banks including BIDV, Vietcombank, Agribank, and VietinBank must implement features allowing individual customers to proactively set transfer limits and waiting periods. If no setting is chosen, a default limit of 400 million VND and a 24-hour waiting period will apply to certain transactions to provide a “necessary pause” against psychological manipulation by scammers.

In terms of lending and capital, Circular 29/2026/TT-NHNN, effective August 15, 2026, raises the threshold for small-value loans to 400 million VND for most credit institutions and 200 million VND for people's credit funds, aiming to simplify procedures for consumers. Additionally, Circular 40/2026/TT-NHNN requires people's credit funds to maintain a minimum capital adequacy ratio of 8% starting November 1, 2026.

Market data shows a surge in liquidity, with individual deposits in the banking system exceeding 11 million trillion VND by the end of June, a 7.1% increase from the end of 2025. This growth in consumer deposits has outpaced corporate deposits. Meanwhile, ABBank reported a pre-tax profit of 3,016 billion VND for the first half of 2026 and is planning to increase its charter capital to nearly 27,000 billion VND.