THE STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY Faculty of Foreign Languages GRADUATION THESIS Moral Hazard and Solutions for Commercial Banks in Vietnam Student: Nguyen Huy Tam Class: K17 – ATCB Student number: 17A7510150 Supervisor: Ms. Le Thi Minh Que (M.A) Hanoi, 05-2018 i TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS.i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS. iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES .iv LIST OF TABLES. Background and Rationale.
Definitions of Commercial Bank. Roles of Commercial Banks. Moral Hazard in Commercial Banking System. Lack of Shared Information.
Principal – Agent Problems. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Current Background of Moral Hazard in Vietnamese Commercial Banks 11 3. Causes and Effects of Moral Hazard on Banking Industry.
Asymmetric Information in Commercial Banking System. Concept of Asymmetric Information. Effects of Asymmetric Information. Cases Caused by Customers.
Penalties and Punishment Enforced. Suggested Solutions to Reduce Moral Hazard in Vietnamese Commercial Banks. For Commercial Banks. For the State Bank of Vietnam.
Summary of Research Results. Limitations of the Current Study and Suggestion for Further Research .47 ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ABBank An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank ACB Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and BIDV Development of Vietnam CBs Commercial Banks DongA Bank DongA Joint Stock Commercial Bank Jsc. Joint-stock Company LienVietPostBank Vietnam Postal Union Commercial Joint Stock Bank Ltd. Limited Company MSB Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank Navibank Nam Viet Commercial Joint Stock Bank OCB Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank Sacombank Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank SBV State Bank of Vietnam SeABank Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank Techcombank Technology Commercial Joint Stock Bank The USA The United State of America USD US Dollar VAT Value Added Tax VDB The Vietnam Development Bank VIB Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank Vietcombank Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam VND Vietnam Dong VPBank Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Banking Moral Hazard Cases in Vietnam from 2007-2017.
17 Figure 2: Banks’ losses announced in 2012. 18 Figure 3: The Number of Moral Hazard Banking Criminals in Vietnam 2007-2017. 21 Figure 4: Seven Banks’ losses to Phuong Nam Company. 28 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Possible chances of asymmetric information.
25 Table 2: Bank staff’s penalties for VDB DakLak – DakNong case. 39 Table 3: Customer’s penalties for VDB DakLak – DakNong case. 39 Table 4: Bank staff’s penalties for Phuong Nam Company case. 40 Table 5: Bank staff’s penalties for Dong Phuong Company case.
40 Table 6: Customer’s penalties for Dong Phuong Company case. 41 Table 7: Bank staff’s penalties for Lifepro case. 41 Table 8: Customer’s penalties for Lifepro case. 42 Table 9: Penalties for HuyenNhu case.
Background and Rationale Since the Renovation in 1986, Vietnamese economy has experienced enormous growth. The business environment has been opened up to encourage economic entities to join. One of the most significant achievements has been the rapid development of the banking system. This has been outstanding.
It has amazed all associated with nation economy. For nearly 30 years (1986 – 2016), Vietnamese banking system has been expanded largely both in quantity and quality. There are 46 banks in active 1 among which closely 87% are commercial banks. Banks nowadays not only just the source of funds but also carry out many other services supporting the establishment, operation, and the development of other economic entities.
The very important roles of banks require them to have an appropriate source of funds, facilities, and most essential, human resources. Most banking activity is operated and supervised by staff. Hence, it could be risky for banks if the employee is not well-qualified. On the other hand, banks’ development drives them to more risks as more business is done, more customers are served.
Among those customers exist people who intentionally or unintentionally act for personal gain thereby causing financial harm to both banks and other customers. The risk mentioned above is called moral hazard. As the economy and also the banking system are evolving day by day, moral hazard is also becoming a serious threat to banks. It results in negative consequences and severe damage to individuals, organizations, banks, and overall the entire economy of Vietnam.
1 Statistics from SBV 1 The last few years have seen a number of new research studies that have appeared to tackle the issue of moral hazard in banking system in Vietnam. There have been annual reports of MPI, Vietnam Ministry of Trade (MOT), Vietnam Ministry of Commerce (MOC), etc. However, little research has been done on analyzing the moral hazard in commercial banking system. Being aware of how vital the moral hazard in banking is, this study titled “Moral Hazard and Suggested Solutions for Vietnamese Commercial Banks”, focuses on an issue that has seen little literature.
It seeks to describe an overview of moral hazard in banking industry, to discuss the main causes and to provide solutions to tackle this problem. Within the limited scope of the research, focusing on the above factors, it will help to understand what is happening in commercial banking system. It is expected to contribute to the theories and practice of minimize the financial loss. Regarding the methodology, the current research employs mainly qualitative methods.
Research Purposes The purpose of this research is to describe an overall look at moral hazard problem in Vietnamese banking system in the recent years. It also seeks to identify the reasons why the problem of moral hazard arises based on analyzing significant case studies that the banking industry bears the losses. Furthermore, the study aims at responding to the concerns of policy makers in taking moral hazard out of banking in Vietnam. Research Questions For the objectives to be achieved, the following questions were addressed in this study Question 1: What is commercial bank? Question 2: What is the problem of moral hazard in commercial banks in Vietnam? Question 3: What are the significant cases of moral hazard in Vietnamese commercial banks? 2 Question 4: Why does moral hazard occur and how does it affect banking industry? Question 5: How to reduce the moral hazard in commercial banking system in Vietnam? 1.
Research Methods In order to reach the targets and objectives set above, a wide range of information sources and several methods of analyzing has been used. Theory knowledge and important data is collected and analyzed from academic books, journals, newspapers, magazines, breaking news and statistics records. Data sources are specified. Besides, to gather all significant case studies and sufficient data for a meaningful analysis and interpretation, the related theories, previous studies were also carefully evaluated for the research objectives to be achieved.
Research Schedule The research was carried out under the supervision of Mrs Le Thi Minh Que (M.A), Department of Foreign Languages, started in April 2018 and finished in June 2018. Thesis Structure The organization of the current study is structured as follows: Chapter 1 discusses the background, rationale, and purposes of the research. Chapter 2 deals with the theoretical foundations for the development of the research. It presents an overview of the definitions, the roles of commercial banks and the moral hazard in banking system.
3 Chapter 3 focuses on providing an overview of moral hazard in commercial banks in Vietnam. In this chapter, some significant case studies were interpreting and analyzing qualitatively to identify the causes of moral hazard scenario. In the last chapter, after a summary of the main findings, the conclusions are then drawn, including the implications, policy recommendations to solve the problem of moral hazard in commercial banking system, limitations of the current study and suggestions for further studies. Definitions of Commercial Bank According Investopedia2, in the financial system, there was a need of an entity that can make use of funds and facilitate the funding process.
Therefore, banks were established to meet the requirement of the financial market. A commercial bank is a type of financial institution that accepts deposits, offers checking account services, makes business, personal and mortgage loans, and offers basic financial products like certificates of deposit (CDs) and savings accounts to individuals and small businesses. A commercial bank is where most people do their banking, as opposed to an investment bank. The US Law defines that a bank is any business offering deposits subject to withdrawal on demand (such as by writing a check or making an electronic transfer of funds) and making loans of a commercial or business nature.
For more specific, commercial bank is a type of bank which sells deposits and makes loans to businesses and individuals. In this work, it will be called "bank" for short. According to Sayers 3 , "A commercial bank is an institution whose debts are widely accepted in settlement of other people's debts to each other." In this definition Sayers has emphasized the transactions from debts which are raised by a financial institution. In Vietnam, commercial banks are legalized to be credit institutions which conduct all banking activities namely: taking deposits, providing credits and payment services, along with other business activities for profit.
4 From the beginning of banking system, banks have been carrying out several basic services such as: accepting deposits, giving loans, exchanging currencies, discounting several kinds of valuable paper, advising and supporting government and other corporations with credit services and business activities. 2 h t is commercial banks - Investopedia 3 A British economist and historian specialized in the history of banking 4 Law No47/2010/QH12 of June 16, 2010 on Credit Institutions 5 Lately, when the world’s economy and business environment become more fluctuated, banks take part in the economic more deeply and develop many more services, namely: insurance, underwriting, leasing equipment, trading securities, financing international trade. Commercial banks in Vietnam have grown astonishingly and proved to be an essential entity in the developing economy. It is because of the important roles that they serve.
The roles will be discussed in the following section. Roles of Commercial Banks As presented above, commercial banks offer many services and take part in the business actively; therefore, they are an irreplaceable component in the economy. The importance may vary mainly due to the scale and the condition of the national economy. However, no matter how big or small the economy is, commercial banks usually have these main functions: acting as an intermediary, providing payment services, managing risks, and handling other tasks 5.
First of all, the most outstanding role of commercial banks is that they act as an intermediary bringing customer together. First, they repackage the deposits received from investors into loans that are provided to firms. In this way, small deposits by individual investors can be consolidated and channeled in the form of large loans to firms. Individual investors would have difficulty achieving this by themselves because they do not have adequate information about the firms that need funds.
In detail, commercial banks will perform assets allocation which is mobilizing funds by issuing debts and then using the funds raised to buy other assets or investing in profitable projects. Not just bridging redundant funds with in-need customers, commercial banks can even play as a brokerage. Commercial banks will act as investors’ agent, help them raise or attract funds and re-invest to gain more profit. This role brings many benefits to both commercial banks and customers because commercial banks have the information advantage, which helps manage fund more effective and reduce the risk of using funds.
Moreover, when commercial banks take 5 Wikipedia/Commercial banks 6 part in the business, cost of transactions could be reduced as commercial banks have the economies of scale to screen and monitor borrowers. Secondly, commercial banks provide a convenient and safe way to perform the process of making payment for and on behalf of customers. Through the current account or so called checking account system, commercial banks carry out the payment via various channels.