The State Bank of Vietnam held its 2026 banking-sector task conference in Hanoi, where Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh set priorities for monetary policy to remain proactive and flexible while maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation and safeguarding the banking system. The direction also covered stronger governance of banking activity linked to planned international financial centres in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, with particular focus on foreign exchange management and cross-border flows. The conference highlighted 2025 outcomes including continued administrative simplification (90.3% of administrative procedures simplified, 33.1% of business conditions cut, 32.8% fewer processing days and 31.5% lower compliance costs) and the addition of 32 end-to-end online public services on the National Public Service Portal. On operations and stability, policy rates were kept unchanged while banks were directed to cut costs to support lower lending rates, alongside large-scale preferential lending programmes including a VND 500 trillion package for infrastructure and digital technology at interest rates 1.0–1.5% below the average. As of 24/12/2025, outstanding credit reached about VND 18.4 quadrillion, up 17.87% from end-2024, while average inflation over the first 11 months was 3.29%. Sector resilience actions cited included the transfer of four weak banks and expanded biometric and digital identity controls, with more than 142.5 million individual customer records and over 1.5 million organisational records matched by 19/12/2025. For near-term execution, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong instructed units across the banking sector to ensure adequate cash supply and smooth, secure payments during early 2026 and the Lunar New Year period, and to begin implementing assigned plans immediately to meet credit and banking-service demand from the first months of 2026.

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