One in two Vietnamese people borrow capital

However, the ratio of people having loans at financial organizations reached just nearly 18.5 percent. This means that a large proportion of people are getting loans through other means, possibly black credit, family loans, or other informal channels.
Considering the level of access to credit of the people, there are differences among groups of customers, by age, sex, and income. The percentage of women having loans ranked the first in the survey with 48.55 percent, 3.5 percent higher than that of men. In particular, the percentage of women borrowing via bank channels accounted for 21 percent, 1.4 times higher than that of men.

The total size of consumer finance is currently VND960 trillion, accounting for about 15.7 percent of the total outstanding credit of the system.

In terms of age, the proportion of older people having loans reached nearly 47.7 percent, 3.7 percent higher than young people’s. However, there is a big gap in the access to lending channels. Accordingly, only 3 percent of young people accessed credit via financial institutions of the total of 44 percent of having loans, while this ratio of older people reached over 23 percent.
According to Nguyen Thi Hien, Deputy Head of the Institute of Banking Strategy, the habits of people in Vietnam are changing, especially in the group of young people, in which they tend to borrow capital to buy necessary shopping needs instead of saving capital. This is one of the reasons why the access to credit of the people is increasing, and became one the motivations for another type of credit consumer credit.
Data of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) stated that the total size of consumer finance is currently VND960 trillion, accounting for about 15.7 percent of the total outstanding credit of the system. Specifically, the outstanding loans of consumer finance companies are fairly modest at just VND74 trillion, equivalent to nearly 8 percent.
Nevertheless, this credit channel is showing signs of booming with the outstanding growth rate reaching over 40 percent per annum in the past three years. The difference in the targeted customer groups between banks and finance companies partly explains the impressive growth in outstanding loans of financial companies, Hien said.
According to survey of the Banking Strategy Institute, there is a fairly big gap in age and income level of customers for consumer finance channel between commercial banks and finance companies. Accordingly, finance companies target customers aged 18-30 with income of VND5-10 million, while banks target customers aged 31-40 with income of VND10-20 million.
Assessing the growth of consumer finance in the near future, Reet Chaudhuri general director of McKinsey & Company said that the room to develop this segment remains large, coming from the trend to switch from non-formal credit channels such as family and friend loans to consumer credit.
Along with that, the government is also introducing policies such as affordable housing for low-income people and that will stimulate customers to access consumer loans on a moderate scale. McKinsey’s leader expects that this sector will continue to grow at 25-30 percent in the next five years.
Sharing similar view, Ta Quang Don, vice director of Legal Department at SBV said that the market demand for consumer finance is still relatively large and not yet fully exploited. The continuous participation of new investors in Vietnam’s consumer finance market in the recent time show that attractiveness of the market.