Vietnam’s leading banks have experienced rapid growth over the past three years, riding high on an explosion of retail lending. This points, perhaps, to an economy that is primed for take-off, with much of the growth now driven by domestic demand.
This is arguably the beginning of a new era for socialist Vietnam, where state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and foreign direct investment have traditionally been the main engines of growth, and a new era for the Vietnamese banking industry, fraught with risks and challenges and destined to leave losers in its wake.
