The restructuring process of banking system has been carried out in various countries. and it was usually considered as the focal point of economic restructuring. Vietnam is in the second year of the third banking restructuring process (2011-2015). The proposal of restructuring the credit institutions in period 2011-2015 has just been approved by the Prime Minister by the Decision No. 254/2012/QD-Ttg dated March 1st, 2012. The restructuring process has begun with the classification of banks (2012), merging of 3 joint-stock banks (2011), etc. Several solutions have to be implemented in the next years. This article focuses on finding the lessons learnt for this restructuring process from 7 failure cases of other commercial banks in various countries. For example: Greece (2010) with non-transparent information and irrelevant investment policy of banks
USA and EU (2011) with moral issues which causes the "Occupy Wall Street" problem
Iceland (2008-2010) with problem of deregulation too fast and too much
USA (2008) with problem of "too big to fail" and "sub-prime mortgage loans "
Holland (2007) with M&A failure
and serious problems with the whole banking system in Russia (2004) and Argentina (2000). From these problems, some lessons are summarized for the commercial banks and the State Bank of Vietnam. Although "each major restructuring and its beneficiaries has been unique" (Peggy Berton), the lessons from success may not be replicated, but the failures of others certainly always have something to learn. It is expected that these failure lessons could help Vietnam to restructure the banking system to implement faster with low cost and risk.