The State Bank of Vietnam announced they intend to restructure five banks this year.
Deputy Chief Inspector of the SBV's Inspection and Supervision Agency Nguyen Van Hung said they had focused on dealing with bad debts and keeping liquidity stable last year.
Bank restructuring would continue this year with OceanBank, GPBank and VNCB which had been nationalised by the SBV, DongA Bank and a commercial bank based in the southern region that has yet to be named.
SBV has worked with five banks and tried to deal with various problems since last year. Hung said they had submitted a restructuring plan that would run until 2020 to the prime minister and the politburo.
"If approved, the plan will be carried out immediately in early this year. This year is an important time for us to completely deal with weak banks," he said.
Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said banking restructuring had been their priority last year and they had worked with other agencies to reach an accurate assessment for the plan.
Deputy Governor of SBV Nguyen Thi Hong
Talking about inspections and supervisions over banking activities, the SBV representative said they would continue tightening supervision as it would help the restructuring process.
The banking sector has seen improvements. Bad debt was curtailed at below 3% as of November 30, 2016. From early 2016 to November 30, the Vietnam Asset Management Company bought 839 debts, totalling VND23.8trn (USD1bn) at book value of VND22.4trn.