With the support of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department (APD) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), an IMF Statistics Department (STA)’s remote financial soundness indicators (FSIs) technical assistance (TA) mission took place during April 30–May 14, 2021. The main objective of the mission was to assist the BSP in compiling FSI for the other financial corporations (OFCs) sector, in line with the 2019 Financial Soundness Indicators Compilation Guide (Guide). Specifically, the Guide recommends compiling indicators for money market funds, insurance corporations, and pension funds, as well as for the total OFC sector. The work of the mission was facilitated by the excellent collaboration of BSP’s staff, in particular of the Department of Economic Statistics (DES). The list of officials met during the mission can be found in Appendix I.

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 measures that indicate the current financial health and soundness of a country's financial institutions, and their corporate and household counterparts. FSIs include both aggregated individual institution data and indicators that are representative of the markets in which the financial institutions operate. FSIs are calculated and disseminated for the purpose of supporting macroprudential analysis--the assessment and surveillance of the strengths and vulnerabilities of financial systems--with a view to strengthening financial stability and limiting the likelihood of financial crises. Financial Soundness Indicators: Compilation Guide is intended to give guidance on the concepts, sources, and compilation and dissemination techniques underlying FSIs; to encourage the use and cross-country comparison of these data; and, thereby, to support national and international surveillance of financial systems.

1. Banking dominates the Philippine financial system. After a significant consolidation following the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, the Philippine banking system today (June 2009) comprises 804 deposit-taking institutions, including universal and commercial banks, as well as thrift, rural, and cooperative banks. Their assets total almost P6 trillion, some 75 percent of GDP or about two-thirds of total financial institutions' assets, an increase of almost 60 percent since 2003 (Table 2). Universal and commercial banks-mostly domestic private banks-account for 88 percent of total banking assets, with the ten largest accounting for about two-thirds.2

GDP contracted by 91⁄2 percent in 2020—a much steeper decline than during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC)—but it is now recovering with the easing of containment measures and economic policy support. Banks are closely connected to the corporate sector through high credit exposures and conglomerate ownership linkages. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) may list the Philippines as a jurisdiction with serious Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) deficiencies in 2021. The country is also vulnerable to climate change (physical) risks, especially the destruction of physical capital from typhoons.

This paper explores insurance as a source of financial system vulnerability. It provides a brief overview of the insurance industry and reviews the risks it faces, as well as several recent failures of insurance companies that had systemic implications. Assimilation of banking-type activities by life insurers appears to be the key systemic vulnerability. Building on this experience and the experience gained under the FSAP, the paper proposes key indicators that should be compiled and used for surveillance of financial soundness of insurance companies and the insurance sector as a whole.

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.