Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirement for the MSc in Finance FINANCE DISSERTATION ON Credit risk management at Vietcombank NGUYEN MANH HAI ID No: 17047737 Intake 1 Supervisor: Prof. PHAM QUOC KHANH September 2018 1 ABSTRACT The subject of this research is Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) that the author focuses on the contemporary issues related to credit risk management in the bank, whereby provides possible solutions. Vietcombank now is one of four biggest commercial banks in Vietnam, along with Vietinbank, BIDV, and Agribank. From the beginning of the business, Vietcombank has significantly contributed to the stability and growth of national economy, played an important role as a key foreign trade bank of Vietnam, and had impact on not only national economy but also international and regional financial community.
This research aims at answering the question related to relationship between credit growth and level of non-performing loans at VCB. By using qualitative analysis of information taken from reliable sources such as company annual reports, journal articles, and academic studies, the research is able to identify the credit situation of VCB, associated with level of bad debt, as well as the method bank uses to manage doubtful loans. The findings of the analysis provided the possible explanations of the expanding credit growth accompanied by an escalating increase in the amount of bad debt. It might reflect the insufficient knowledge of the staffs, the issue of staff’s morality, the loosening management of the top manager, or the need to make changes in the bank’s credit risk management model.
There are two models suggested by author with her own academic knowledge for Individual and Corporate model. For Individual model, the combination between collateral asset rating and the credit rating is proposed to score the individual credit more exactly. In Corporate model, the integration of internal credit rating model and the Basel II approach is taken into consideration to enhance the bank’s own method of protection from credit risk and to strengthen the supervisory and regulatory role of the State Bank of Vietnam for an equally competitive banking market. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.
2 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 3 LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES .2 Research objectives and questions. 8 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .1 Commercial banks in Vietnam .1 Concepts and Functions .2 Operation of commercial banks in Vietnam .2 Credit risk in Vietnamese banking system .1 Definition of credit risk .2 Categories of credit risk.3 Credit risk and bad debt .4 Importance of credit risk management at banks .5 Current situation of credit at Vietnamese commercial banks .3 Credit risk and credit risk management in Vietnamese banking sector .1 Key players in credit market .2 Credit risk management. 25 CHAPTER III: RISK MANAGEMENT OF JOINT STOCK COMMERCIAL BANK FOR FOREIGN TRADE OF VIETNAM (VIETCOMBANK) .1 Overview of Vietcombank .2 Current credit performance .1 Bad debt and non-performing loans .2 Potential factors causing credit risk .4 Credit risk management .1 Credit risk management process .2 Credit rating system .3 Internal credit rating.1 Individual client’s credit scoring .2 Corporate client’s credit scoring .4 VCB’s credit risk management SWOT analysis .5 Solutions to current credit risk issues.1 Comprehensive individual credit risk management approach .2 Corporate credit risk management approach.
46 CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 61 5 LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Commercial banks’ primary and secondary functions (Academic Collective, 2016). 10 Table 2: Types of commercial banks by ownership (Tran et al. 12 Table 3: Matching corporate priorities and credit cultures (Strischek, 2017).
20 Table 4: Vietcombank’s financial figures from 2012 to 2017 (Vietcombank, 2018). 29 Table 5: Vietcombank’s strategic target for 2018. 31 Table 6: Vietcombank’s credit scoring. 39 Table 7: VCB’s credit scoring for individual clients (Vo, 2015).
40 Table 8: VCB’s financial scoring group. 41 Table 9: VCB’s SWOT Summary. 43 Table 10: Comprehensive individual credit risk management approach. 45 Table 11: Categorization of collateral scoring.
46 Table 12: List of commercial banks in Vietnam categorized by ownership as of 2016 (State Bank of Vietnam, 2016) .1 Problem statement Together with the development of the Vietnamese economy in the recent years, especially after the 2008-2012 period of economic crisis, the system of commercial banks has also had accelerating and evolving steps in playing the role of key channel to supply significant capital for the economy. In the open market, credit offering undeniably is the basic function of any commercial bank as interest income from lending constitutes primary revenues for the banks. According to KPMG in its Vietnam Banking Survey 2013, the sector of loans and advances to customer accounts for more than 50% of the banking assets and the revenues collected from credit activities makes up approximately from half to two- thirds of the total revenues. Despite the fact that commercial banks expand its operations by diversifying its products, customers or market niche, there is always implication of risks attached to these activities, namely: Credit risks, Market risk, Operational risk (Golin & Delhaize, 2013).
Among the above mentioned risks, the credit risk is considered to be the major concern as it forms the largest portion and the most complex interrelationship with other risks. Credit risk once it happens would have a significant effect on not only financial losses but also the bank’s reputation which leads to the missing belief of citizens towards the whole system of banks. As a result of credit risk’s spreading interrelation; credit risk can be the root for a financial or social crisis. The leading sign of credit risk is the bad debt.
The high bad debt rate means the incapability of the bank to control the credit risk. During the conference to summarize the financial results of the first 6-month of 2015, Mr. Thanh Nghiem, the Chairman of Vietcombank showed anxiety for the quality of credit and bad debt. While the credit growth 7 was 6.52% higher than the average, 7 the certain bad debt was increased by 1.012 billion VND compared to that of the end of 2014.
During author’s internship at Vietcombank, this issue was repeatedly mentioned in every meeting which stimulates author’s curiosity to figure out the reasons behind that and to some certain extent provide a workable model of credit risk management.2 Research objectives and questions By analyzing the current situation of Vietcombank in the field of credit activities, credit risk and credit risk management, the ultimate goals of the research are to draw the answers for two research questions: What do credit growth and bad debt of Vietcombank reflect? Is it possible to build up an effective model of credit risk management for Vietcombank? 1.3 Research methodology The research method used throughout the research is the qualitative analysis. The research helps to understand the lying problems of credit risk at Vietcombank, and based on the findings, the author suggests to a model serving as a sound base of the decision making of loan granting. The primary data related to Vietcombank was obtained through its official website, annual reports. Moreover, there were reliable articles on newspapers or reports from reputed financial institutions used to solidify the statements.
There was an interview conducted with credit expert working in Department of Bad Debt handling at Vietcombank to extend the knowledge of the bank’s credit activities.4 Research structure The research is divided into four main chapters. It starts with the introduction to give the overall view of the research on where the topic comes from, what author aims to achieve by the end of 8 the research, which tools author used throughout the research. Then, the second chapter explains the theoretical framework of credit risks in the banking industry and how commercial banks generally manage the credit risks. In this chapter, the overall Vietnamese banking industry is introduced in accordance with the theory.
The next chapter analyses and evaluates the situation of Vietcombank mainly in the last three years, from 2012 to 2014, and the first 6-month of 2015 concerning the credit activities. It also discusses the posed problem of credit growth and high bad debt rate at Vietcombank. The third chapter presents the suggested idea of the author to have a working credit risk management. Last but not least, the brief conclusion is given in the last chapter to summarize the findings of the research.
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Commercial banks in Vietnam 2.1 Concepts and Functions Commercial banks are different from other banks based on their services provided to the economy. According to Leaf (1927), banks become commerical banks when they deal in money and credit for profit. In other words, commercial banks are financial institutions that take the deposits from the public for safety and lend those deposits to person/organization who need the funds (Gobat, 2012). In the United States, a commerical bank is defined to be an institution that obtains federally insured deposit, paying interest to depositors, and at the same time, makes residental and commerical loans, underwrites securities such as U.
Tresuries, commerical paper, and bonds (Getter, 2016). Meanwhile, in Asian countries, commerical banks often provide various services such as traditional banking services (lending and depositing), commercial banking, investment banking, insurance, and asset management (Laeven, 2005). 9 Despite being defined differently among countries, commercial banks are categorized into two main functions, namely primary and secondary functions (Nguyen, 2016). Sepcifically, the activities of commercial banks falling into each function group are presented in the following: COMMERCIAL BANKS Primary functions Secondary functions • Accepting deposits from fund savers • Discounting bills of exchange or (current account deposits, fixed bundles deposits, and saving account deposits) • Overdraft facility • Making loans and advances in form of • Agency functions: transferring funds, cash credit, demand loans, overdraft, collecting funds, making payments of and short-term loans tax, insurance and bills as per the • Investment: in securities such as direction of customers, purchasing and Government securities, other approved selling securities, collecting dividends, securities, and other securities.
• Performing general utility services such as locker facility and underwriting securities. Table 1: Commercial banks’ primary and secondary functions (Academic Collective, 2016) Based on their characteristics and functions, it cannot be denied that commercial banks have significantly important role to not only national banking system but also the whole economy. According to Olokoyo (2011), commercial banks provide the biggest capital savings, mobilization and financial allocation to the economy, contributing to the economic growth and development. To be specific, the importance of commercial banks is presented in three 10 dimensions, including information processing, risk sharing, and money creation (Mehta & Fung, 2008).
Information is collected from both depositors and borrowers to evaluate and ensure the financial health and capital flows of the transactions. Moreover, when making loans to borrowers, banks share the risk with depositors in case borrowers are not able to complete their obligations (Martin et al. Last but not least, commercial banks enable money supply by creating credit, which is also named as money creation. Bank’s money creation is determined by primary deposits (money deposited by savers), and secondary deposits (reserve requirements) (Academic Collective, 2016).
Hence, by performing this function, commercial banks give a great support to Government in term of controlling and generating mony supply for its expenditures on social, economic, and polical activities (Mehta & Fung, 2008).2 Operation of commercial banks in Vietnam Talking about the nature of the business, commercial banks in Vietnam can be classified into either wholesale or retail banks despite the fact that most of them provide both types of services (Hull, 2010). While wholesale banks focus on corporate lending, retail banks target individual and small business as their main customers. For instance, among foreign banks operating in Vietnam, ANZ Banking Group (which has been recently acquired by Shinhan Bank) is considered the only banks targeting retail banking, whereas most foreign banks pay higher attention to commercial corporate and wholesale banking activities by funding FDI projects instead of domestic private sector enterprises (Vuong, 2010).