Vietnamese banks, particularly commercial joint stock banks, are racing to lend more to automobile buyers, seeing them as a major segment of customers.
Automobile loan services, in fact, have been launched for over five years. However compared to the four previous years, this year banks have paid more attentions to such a group of potential borrowers when demand for automobiles is rising.
Many banks have separated automobile loan services from customer loan services.
With a target that total loans offered to automobile buyers account for 25-35 per cent of its total lending to individuals, the Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Oricombank) has cooperated with 30 agents of Toyota, Ford, Mercedes, Lexus to promote this lending program.
In the forthcoming time, the bank would inject more capital into the automobile market upon seeing growing demand for automobiles, said Huynh Nguyen Anh Vu, credit officer of Oricombank said.
In addition to buyers of new cars, Oricombank will also offer loans to those who want to own a second-hand automobile which has been used for no more than six years.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) targets at car buyers who are white-collar employees and businesspeople who have stable income of some VND10 million a month in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces.
Currently, total credit lent to automobile buyers at the HSBC accounts for more than half of total lending to individual clients. Lending to this group of customers also registers a high growth rate of more than 30 per cent a year which is projected to continue rising in the following years.
HSBC currently also offers unsecured loans ranging from VND20 million to VND200 million for reliable car buyers.
The Southeast Asia Bank (SeABank) said that it handles some 20 applications for loans for car purchase a day. According to Ngo Minh Sang from SeABank’s credit division, total automobile loans in the half were VND40 billion, rising by 30 per cent against last year.
The Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) also said that its total outstanding loans to automobile buyers reached VND150 billion in the January-June period, up by VND50 billion against last year.
Interest rates for automobile loans are equal to or lower than that for consumer loans. Some banks even reduce the rates to the lowest.
HSBC now offers a competitive interest rate of 1.02 per cent a month, while ACB applies the short-term lending interest rate of only 1.1 per cent a month for the first year and the rate will be added with another 0.3-0.35 per cent a month in the following years.
The interest rate at Oricombank is fixed at 1.1-1.15 per cent a month for the first lending year. For the next years, the interest rate will be based on deposit interest rates of 13-month terms.
SeABank offers the interest rate of some 1.1-1.2 per cent a month for automobile loans.
The Vietnam Technological and Commercial Bank (Techcombank)’s lending interest rates are 12-month term deposit rates plus 0.2-0.35 per cent a month depending on terms and the risk levels of specific loans.
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