Global credit rating firm Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded the credit rating of the Vietnamese banks, Vietcombank, Techcombank, and BIDV.
As such, the long-term credit rating of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), Vietnam Technical and Commercial JS Bank (Techcombank), and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) was downgraded from BB- to B+, while their short-term rating was maintained at B.BIDV and Vietcombank were assessed to have “very weak” capital and profit, meanwhile Techcombank was ranked by the firm as being a weak bank. On the other hand, their rate of liquidity was deemed to be reasonable. S&P said that Techcombank was stable, but BIDV’s and Vietcombank’s dropped to negative levels.
According to a press release by BIDV, this recent downgrade is not necessarily a cause for worry. “This time S&P has applied new rating methods to the banking sector," they said.
The press release explained that based on the new rating system, “Because Vietnam’s credit rating had been lowered from 9 to 10, the basic rating of Vietnamese banks was also lowered.”
At present, these three banks are the only ones which use S&P's credit rating services.
