Residents walk past the building of the Vietnam Asset Management Company in Hanoi, Vietnam
Residents walk past the building of the Vietnam Asset Management Company in Hanoi, Vietnam October 8, 2015. With a shabby facade, bars on its windows and flanked by a hair salon and a knockoff clothing store, the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) looks more like a backstreet pawnshop than a much-heralded bad-debt bank. This no-frills office with PVC sofas, chintzy 1980s decor and no elevator houses what's been the central bank's shoestring saviour for wayward banks and risky borrowers who ran up $20 billion in bad debt in 2012 and almost brought a promising economy to its knees. Picture taken October 8, 2015. REUTERS/Kham