Bank heads arrive for conference
(Updated: March 18, 2008)
VietNamNet Bridge – Banking leaders from around the world yesterday gathered for the first day of a three-day conference run by a well known Singapore-based private company. The Asian Banker, to discuss financial risks in an unchartered age.
At a press conference, senior banking officials stressed the importance of education and high corporate governance by Vietnamese banks to avoid financial risks.
As an emerging market, speakers said Vietnam was going through a learning process. This meant it could adopt best practices from other nations and people with experience.
However, they said it was not an overnight process. "Building up necessary skills takes time. Don't rush, but do it properly," said David Eldon, chairman of the Asian Banker Summit Advisory Council and chairman of the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority.
Eldon recommended local banks learn the best and worst from overseas banking. Other speakers warned that financial methods of overcoming serious risks were probably not present in Vietnam.
China an example.
The Vietnamese Government, which has had to deal with the double-digit inflation since the end of last year, hopes to keep inflation below the targeted 9% economic growth this year.
In February, Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 15.7%, its highest level for more than 10 years.
A series of bold monetary policies to curb inflation has been implemented, including lifting interest rates, higher compulsory reserves, issuing treasury bills, tightening property and securities lending and limiting credit growth.
"It's really a difficult question when you want continued economic growth and at the same time you want to have inflation under control, said Paul Sarbanes, a former US senator and co-author of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
"Balancing the two requires very careful adjustment on how you move ahead."
Eldon said there were many ways of dealing with inflation. "As the senator says, using interest rates as the first line of defence [will slow down economic growth]".
He said in China the Government had been trying for several months to curb inflation. It had raised interest rates and curbed lending in several sectors, for example, to try to lower property prices.
China kept inflation under some control, but at the same time kept the economy growing and provided employment.
Many Vietnamese experts at the summit said they were concerned that foreign-investment in Vietnam was putting more inflationary pressure on the shoulders of the top regulators' (the Government, central banks and Government ministries) trying to beat inflation.
There were some recommendations that the country should give privilege to some foreign investments in certain sectors to give the Vietnamese system more time to learn how to manage them.
However, most speakers declined to suggest specific economic and monetary policies for the Vietnam Government to follow.
Late on Sunday, the summit presented awards and letters of commendation to 12 banks and their IT partners for technological excellence in the financial services industry.
The Asian Banker Leadership Awards were awarded to 37 people in the banking industry.
Banking institutions
There are five state-owned banks in Vietnam covering 57% of the local market, 34 joint stock commercial banks (26%), 41 branches of foreign banks (9.4%), 52 offices of foreign credit institutions, 989 people's credit funds, nine financial companies, 12 financial leasing companies, one social policy bank and one development bank.
(Source: Vietnam News)