Financial Soundness Indicators for Financial Sector Stability

Financial soundness indicators (FSIs) are methodological tools that help quantify and qualify the soundness and vulnerabilities of financial systems according to five areas of interests: capital adequacy, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk. With support from the Investment Climate Facilitation Fund under the Regional Cooperation and Integration Financing Facility, this report describes the development of FSIs for Viet Nam and analyzes the stability and soundness of the Vietnamese banking system by using these indicators. The key challenges to comprehensively implementing reforms and convincingly addressing the root causes of the banking sector problems include (i) assessing banks' recapitalization needs, (ii) revising classification criteria to guide resolution options, (iii) recapitalization and restructuring that may include foreign partnerships, (iv) strengthening the Vietnam Asset Management Company, (v) developing additional options to deal with nonperforming loans, (vi) tightening supervision to ensure a sound lending practice, (vii) revamping the architecture and procedures for crisis management, and (viii) strengthening financial safety nets during the reform process.

Financial soundness indicators (FSIs) are compiled to monitor the health and soundness of financial institutions and markets, and of their corporate and household counterparts. With support from the Investment Climate Facilitation Fund under the Regional Cooperation and Integration Financing Facility, this report describes the development of FSIs for Bangladesh and analyzes FSIs to identify key challenges to financial sector stability in the country. A large number of FSIs are not yet available for Bangladesh, notably outside the formal banking sector including nonbank financial institutions, insurance companies, and microfinance institutions. Another key challenge for Bangladesh is the improvement of coverage, frequency, timeliness, and quality of FSIs and to make them more available to a wider audience.

The development and analysis of financial soundness indicators help policy makers identify the strengths and vulnerabilities in their countries' financial systems and take preventive action to avert a crisis or at least minimize its effects. This publication presents the country-case studies for Bangladesh, Georgia, and Viet Nam focusing on the growing evidences in the development of financial soundness indicators to effectively monitor the financial performance of the country. With the support from Investment Climate Facilitation Fund under the Regional Cooperation and Integration Financing Facility, the tales of three countries shows the diverse financial vulnerabilities of each economy. For example, Georgia and Viet Nam have met capital adequacy standards but Bangladesh has faltered in this aspect for it requires an injection of capital into state-owned commercial banks that is contingent upon improved governance. On the other hand, Georgia and Viet Nam could have been more susceptible to global economic crises than Bangladesh. A significant amount of public and private debt in Georgia is denominated in foreign currency while Viet Nam's economic openness---largely because of rapid economic integration in East Asia---has made it vulnerable to global economic slowdowns.