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SME lending in Vietnam: bottlenecks in loan processing and the role of hybrid automation

For leaders at banks and credit institutions. More than 30 experts explain why SME lending is still slow, and how hybrid automation can help.
Related topics
  • Lending
  • Reports
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SMEs make up about 94% of enterprises in Vietnam, but SME lending remains largely manual. Based on more than 30 interviews and questionnaires with bankers, fintech leaders and independent experts, this report shows where loan files get stuck and what banks can do now.

Summary
  • Only about one in five SMEs has a bank loan, compared with 61.4% of large enterprises.
  • 40–50% of processing time goes on manually moving data between systems.
  • Hybrid processing, combining systems and people, is the prevailing model: systems prepare the case, people make the credit decision.

What’s in the report

  • The six steps of the SME lending process, and which one is slowest
  • Why approval times range from three days to two months under the same regulatory framework
  • Four types of bank and how each approaches automation
  • Five layers of constraint, only one of which can be solved by software alone
  • What will shape SME lending to 2030
  • Three practical steps for bank leaders

The fieldwork was carried out by a research team from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, commissioned by Akkuro.