Banks continuously reported positive business performance in August after good results in the first seven months of the year.

Techcombank general director Nguyen Duc Vinh said his bank’s pre-tax profit in August was about 200 billion VND (11.2 million USD), lifting the bank’s pre-tax profit in the first eight months to nearly 1.43 trillion VND (79.9 million USD).


Sacombank chairman Dang Van Thanh said that in the first eight months of the year, his bank earned a pre-tax profit of more than 1.2 trillion VND (67 million USD).

With the results, Thanh expected Sacombank would exceed its annual target of 1.6 trillion VND (89.4 million USD).

Until August 31, Eximbank’s pre-tax profit was more than 1 trillion VND (55.9 million USD), chairman Nguyen Thanh Long said, estimating the bank would meet its yearly target of 1.5 trillion VND (83.8 million USD).
By the end of August, Eximbank’s mobilisation capital was more than 44 trillion VND (2.46 billion USD) while its total outstanding loans were 34 trillion VND (1.9 billion USD).

Maritime Bank said it had so far completed its annual pre-tax profit target of 600 billion VND (33.5 million USD) so that it expected to earn roughly 800 billion VND (44.7 million USD) – 1 trillion VND (55.9 million USD) of pre-tax profit for the year.

By the end of August, HD Bank also earned a pre-tax profit of more than 172 billion VND (9.6 million USD), which was the banks’ target for the entire 2009.

Despite the good results, banks said there remained difficulties ahead as the banking industry was still suffering impacts from the crisis.

Techcombank’s Vinh forecast the banks’ profits gained from credit for the remaining months of the year would reduce as the gap between interest rates for deposit and lending was modest. Deposit interest rates offered by banks nearly reached the 10.5 percent ceiling lending interest rate regulated by the State Bank of Vietnam .

Banks would not be able to continuously expand lending on real estate and securities as they had in the first half because of the State Bank’s decision to closely control the credit, Vinh said.

Therefore, banks’ turnover from credit services would decrease compared to the first half of the year as turnover from credit services represented more than a half of banks’ profits in the first six months of the year./.