State Bank of Vietnam instructs lenders in Region 12 to keep payments and capital transactions uninterrupted after branch consolidation

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) held a supervisory working session with SBV Region 12 following the central bank’s restructuring and instructed credit institutions operating in the region to ensure uninterrupted capital transactions and payment services for citizens and businesses. Region 12 has operated for more than a month under a new model that merged SBV branches in Đồng Nai, Bình Dương, Bình Phước, Tây Ninh and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu, with a deputy director assigned to each province to oversee policy implementation and handle service-user feedback. The region comprises 1,106 transaction points across banks and other providers and, after the merger, its lending and funding scale ranks behind only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Regional data showed deposits of over VND 1,000 trillion at end-March 2025 (up 2.06% from end-2024) and outstanding credit of over VND 1,100 trillion (up 0.86% since the start of 2025), with stronger growth in Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu and slight declines elsewhere; priority-sector lending continued to expand. Supervisory work has focused on compliance with SBV interest-rate rules, implementation of Circular 02/2023/TT-NHNN on debt rescheduling and maintaining loan classifications, and directives to cut operating costs and unnecessary procedures to support lower lending rates. SBV functional units also flagged cash-vault and cash logistics challenges in areas far from regional headquarters and indicated they will support credit institutions’ cash circulation under existing rules, while encouraging commercial banks to develop and submit proposals on practical cash-management approaches as central bank operations shift towards greater digitalisation.