HANOI, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Total non-performing loans (NPLs) at the banks in Vietnam surged in the first half of this year due to the poor business performance of the whole economy, local media reported on Monday.
This is not the peak of bad debt because payment of many debts is still rescheduled and the actual number of bad debts must be higher, local newspaper Vietnam News reported, citing experts.
The debt recovery in Vietnam has faced difficulties, including the frozen real estate market, the newspaper cited Nguyen Quoc Hung, general secretary of the Vietnam Banks Association.
Noting that bad debt is a common trend in the world in the current difficult context, banking expert Can Van Luc said bad debts have increased compared to 2022, yet it is still under control.
Though the bad debt coverage ratio out of the total outstanding loans of the economy is currently at 135 percent, not as high as a few years ago, it is still an important resource for banks to handle bad debts, he said.
TPBank's total NPLs by the end of the second quarter of 2023 increased by nearly three times compared to the beginning of this year to 3.91 trillion Vietnamese dong (164.3 million U.S. dollars), the newspaper said, citing its latest financial statement.
The total NPLs of other banks including ABBank, BaoViet Bank and Bac A bank as of June 30 hiked 61 percent, 58 percent and 32 percent respectively compared to the beginning of the year, the newspaper said. ■