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Where are the dollars?
Commercial banks have announced the same purchase and sale dollar prices for the last month, while complaining about the dollar shortage. Meanwhile, export companies, which have incomes in dollars, do not want to sell dollars to banks.
Dollars profuse somewhere, short elsewhere
Ly, who is leaving Vietnam in several days for overseas study, yesterday called Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) to ask about the purchase of foreign currencies. Ly was told that the bank now does not have any dollars to sell and that she needs to contact the bank in advance and wait for supplies.
Ly also called Sacombank on the same day, and received similar answers.
“Banks sometimes have to flatter export companies to persuade them to sell dollars to banks,” said Tran Phuong Binh, General Director of East Asia Bank (EAB) while complaining about the dollar shortage.
“The volume of dollars sold by export companies is little,” said Do Minh Toan, Deputy General Director of ACB.
The manager of a domestic fund management company said that if an institution wants to purchase US $10 million, it won’t get the sum within the day, but will have to collect dollars within five to seven days.
Over the last month, a lot of commercial banks have announced the same purchase and sale dollar prices. Though banks’ quoted exchange rates have always been at the ceiling levels, the rates were still lower by VND 150-261/US $1.00 than the black market in the last month. The gap between the banks’ rate and the rate on the black market yesterday was VND 131-171/US $1.00
Analysts said that the dollar flow to banks has gotten stuck these days because those businesses, who have dollars, do not want to sell their dollars to banks once they can sell on the black market for higher prices. Meanwhile, commercial banks cannot raise the purchase prices because the ceiling sale price cannot be 3% higher than the interbank exchange rate announced by the State Bank of Vietnam.
Statistics by the central bank showed that the capital in foreign currencies mobilized by commercial banks increased by 2.3% in January.
What will the exchange rate be like?
While commercial banks complain that they do not have dollars to sell, because they cannot purchase dollars from export companies, the black market does not lack dollars.
Explaining why banks now quote the same purchase and sale dollar prices, Binh from the EAB said that the bank is breaking even in trading dollars and that the bank has to do that in order to retain royal clients.
“The ACB does not make a profit in foreign currency trading, while it can only get fees from international payment services,” said Do Minh Toan.
The market liquidity now remains low due to unclear tendency of the VND and the dollar. The reporters released by institutions recently all predicted the devaluation of the VND in the time to come.
According to Kim Eng Securities Company, the expected devaluation of the local currency is 14% in twelve months. Binh from the EAB thinks that the VND/US$ exchange rate will not see big fluctuations in a couple of months.
VietNamNet, SGTT
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