Powering the Next Credit Cycle: Funding Solutions to Ensure Sustainable Credit Growth in Vietnam

As Vietnam targets a phase of high and sustainable growth in the coming years, the key challenge extends beyond the scale of credit expansion or the volume of capital injected into the economy. Instead, it lies in how capital is mobilized, allocated, and utilized to generate durable, productivity-led growth.

At Vietnam Access Days 2026, organized by Vietcap Securities on 4 February 2026 in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Nguyen Quang Thuan, Executive Chairman of FiinGroup and FiinRatings, delivered a presentation titled “Powering the Next Credit Cycle: Funding Solutions to Ensure Sustainable Credit Growth in Vietnam.”Key highlights from his presentation include:

• Vietnam’s GDP growth in 2025 has been driven primarily by investment activities, including public investment and FDI, as well as exports from the FDI sector, while private sector investment and domestic consumption remain weak. To achieve the 10% growth target from 2026 onward, expectations are placed on (i) an improvement in investment capital flows from domestic enterprises and (ii) a recovery in domestic consumption demand.
• This backdrop is expected to shape a new credit cycle in Vietnam over the 2026 - 2030 period. The Vietnamese government’s current focus is on accelerating public investment and creating more favorable conditions for further development of private sector investment. This will provide an important foundation for both opportunities and risks in Vietnam’s next five-year credit cycle.
• According to FiinGroup’s estimates, during 2026 - 2030, Vietnam will need to mobilize between USD 172 billion and USD 263 billion per year in medium- and long-term investment capital. When assessed against existing funding sources, the economy’s medium- and long-term capital gap is estimated at USD 20 - 30 billion annually. Existing medium- and long-term capital sources include public investment, medium- and long-term bank lending, FDI and M&A capital, equity capital raised via the stock market, capital mobilized through the corporate bond market, and international debt financing.
• Public investment:Disbursement is projected at approximately VND 1.12 quadrillion (USD 41.2 billion) in 2026. Fiscal policy space remains relatively ample, supported by effective public debt management over recent years. However, public investment should be regarded primarily as catalytic capital to support PPP projects and crowd in large-scale private investment over the longer term.
• Bank credit:Total outstanding credit of the banking system stands at approximately VND 18.4 quadrillion (USD 702 billion), while Vietnam’s credit-to-GDP ratio remains high at around 146% as of end-2025. The ratio of short-term funding used for medium- and long-term lending across the banking system was approximately 28.32% as of end-November 2024, approaching the State Bank of Vietnam’s regulatory ceiling of 30%. The CAR of the Big 4 banks remained below 11% as of mid-2025, alongside pressure to implement Basel III under the roadmap toward 2030. These indicators indicate that Vietnam’s commercial banking system lacks sufficient capacity to meet long-term investment capital demand, including large-scale infrastructure projects.
• Corporate bonds: New issuance in 2025 reached approximately VND 644 trillion (USD 23.9 billion). However, non-bank corporate bonds remain limited in scale, at around VND 207 trillion (USD 7.9 billion), accounting for 32% of total issuance. The corporate bond channel is expected to expand more strongly from 2026 onward, supported by ongoing policy improvements, particularly greater flexibility in the use of proceeds, enhanced information transparency, mandatory credit rating requirements, and a rising bank lending interest rate environment.
• International borrowing:Corporate external debt stood at approximately VND 2.2 quadrillion (USD 85.7 billion) by end-2025. While Vietnam’s public debt still has room for further expansion, the key consideration remains capital utilization efficiency. Prospects for mobilizing this funding channel are expected to improve as global interest rates decline and will depend largely on an upgrade of Vietnam’s sovereign credit rating (currently BB+) and policy mechanisms aimed at improving project bankability, particularly for infrastructure projects.
• Equity capital mobilization via the stock market:Cash capital raised through equity issuance in 2025 reached VND 150.5 trillion (USD 5.7 billion) - the highest level in nearly 30 years of Vietnam’s stock market history. Key drivers for 2026 and subsequent years include potential IPO transactions, listings by FDI enterprises, continued progress toward MSCI market reclassification, and the realization of outcomes from the stock market upgrade to attract portfolio investment.

Mr. Thuan emphasized that “the ability to mobilize and efficiently allocate long-term investment capital will be a decisive factor in realizing these ambitious growth objectives, alongside other important drivers such as improving labor productivity, developing human capital, and promoting innovation in line with the Government’s current policy direction.”

Leveraging FiinGroup’s data capabilities and FiinRatings’ credit rating expertise, an analytical ecosystem has been developed to provide independent, standardized, and in-depth perspectives on the capital market. This approach supports improved pricing discipline, enhances the quality of capital allocation, and promotes the deepening development of Vietnam’s capital market.

👉 Download the full presentation: HERE
👉 Explore FiinRatings’ credit rating and risk analysis solutions at: https://fiinratings.vn/en