|
Gov’t money at state owned banks: VND52tril or VND30tril?
A source at the State Bank of Vietnam said that to date, the total sum of money deposited at state owned banks has reached VND30tril only, not VND52tril as local newspapers reported.
The source said that the State Bank of Vietnam and State Treasury met two weeks ago and came to an agreement that the money transfer from the state owned banks to central bank branches will be completed by September or November 2008 at the latest.
The transfer will be carried out step by step in order to avoid shocks to the banking system as they will not be able to use such a big volume of capital any longer.
However, the two organs still could not agree on how much money to withdraw from state owned banks.
An official from the State Bank of Vietnam said that the central bank wants to withdraw all VND30tril from state owned banks in order to be able to control the money supply on the market more effectively.
The official said that currently, the government’s money is being used for credit operations, which has been making it hard for the central bank to control the money supply. Moreover, the withdrawal of money is believed will help ease the pressure of inflation.
Meanwhile, an official of the Ministry of Finance said that the ministry only wants to transfer VND10,000bil to the central bank for management. The ministry thinks the money transfer should only be carried out in localities where there are branches of the central bank. As for the localities where there are no branches, the money should stay deposited at branches of state owned banks.
According to the Ministry of Finance, 600 districts and communes nationwide still do not have central bank branches.
In the localities where there are no central bank branches, it would be time consuming to transfer money from treasury branches to central bank branches (and vice versa, in case it is necessary to spend state budget funds) due to the long distances.
It is expected that the Ministry of Finance and State Bank of Vietnam will discuss and come to an agreement on the sum of money to be transferred this month, and the transfer start in May 2008.
The director of a state owned bank said that the money transfer will make banks lose a cheap and profuse source of capital (banks have to pay 3% only for the capital). The money withdrawal, though carried out gradually, will still make banks face a capital shortage.
The inter-bank market last week saw the interest rate skyrocket to over 20% per annum.
Joint stock banks applaud the money transfer as state owned banks will not have the cheap source of capital anymore. This will create a fair playing field for both state owned and joint stock banks. However, they have said that the money transfer will have bad impacts on them as well, as state owned banks will have no excessive capital to lend to joint stock banks anymore.
VNN
|
