HANOI: Vietnam’s corporate bond market is diverging sharply in early 2026 as banks scale back issuance amid soaring funding costs, while real estate developers return aggressively to the market to refinance debt and secure capital for projects.
The market looks very different from a year ago when banks were the dominant bond issuers.
According to data from the Vietnam Bond Market Association, banks issuing bonds in April had to offer coupon rates as high as 8.9% compared with roughly 5% during the same period in 2025.
Among banks, the largest issuers in the first four months were Techcombank with eight trillion dong (US$303.45mil) worth of bonds, followed by HDBank at 4.7 trillion dong and BIDV at 3.3 trillion dong.
As yields climbed closer to lending rates, many banks shifted towards more flexible funding sources such as customer deposits, interbank borrowing and open market operations instead of relying heavily on bond issuance.
The change quickly reshaped the market.
Bank bonds, which accounted for all corporate bond issuance in the first quarter (1Q) of last year, represented only around 30% of total issuance in the 1Q of 2026.
Meanwhile, real estate firms expanded their share to about 60%.
Dinh Quang Hinh, head of macroeconomics and market strategy at VNDirect, said average yields on privately placed bank bonds reached 8.5% in April, reflecting mounting liquidity pressure and rising capital costs across the banking sector.
At the same time, average lending rates at domestic commercial banks rose to 7.4% to 9.7% in March, according to the State Bank of Vietnam.
Analysts at FiinGroup said the shrinking gap between bond yields and lending rates had reduced the attractiveness of bond issuance for banks, even as lenders continued to face strong demand for medium- and long-term capital.
While banks turned cautious, developers accelerated fundraising activity as tighter credit conditions pushed them towards capital markets.
Data from VBMA and MB Securities JSC (MBS) showed real estate companies issued around 30.4 trillion dong worth of bonds in April.
This accounted for nearly 59% of total issuance and marked the highest monthly level in six months.
Since the beginning of the year, the property sector has raised 54.4 trillion dong through bond sales.
This was up 278% year-on-year and equivalent to more than half of the domestic corporate bond market.
Average issuance yields stood at 8.7%, with tenors averaging 4.3 years.
Major issuers included Vingroup – which sold 9.2 trillion dong worth of five-year bonds – and Vinhomes, which issued six trillion dong in 30-month bonds carrying yields of 12.5%.
Vingroup also completed a US$350mil international bond issuance with a five-year tenor, underscoring growing demand among major developers for diversified funding sources beyond domestic bank loans.
According to Nguyen Duc Thong, chief executive officer of SSI Securities, Vietnam’s economy still depends heavily on bank credit while the capital market, including the stock and corporate bond markets, accounts for only around 15% to 20% of total funding in the economy.
He forecast that the capital market would become a more effective fundraising channel for businesses in the coming years.
Analysts said developers are increasingly relying on bonds not only because of tighter real estate lending controls, but also due to heavy debt maturities approaching this year. — Viet Nam News/ANN
