Local banks perform well in first half of the year

Hanoi (VNA) - Commercial banks have performed well in the first half of 2017 (H1), and business results show that many have already met more than half their annual profit targets.

Vietcombank and Vietinbank were the first two State-owned banks to announce preliminary business results in H1.

Vietcombank announced that its pre-tax profit in H1 had crossed 5 trillion VND (220 million USD), up 20 percent year on year, and 53.2 percent of its 2017 target.

Its General Director Pham Quang Dung said the result was supported by healthy growth in all sectors, following a three-year restructure.

Between January and June, the bank set aside 3 trillion VND for risky loans, bringing its provision fund to 10.7 trillion VND, equal to 136 percent of its total non-performing loans.

The bank’s capital mobilisation increased by 10.4 percent to 660 trillion VND, while its credit growth rose to around 534 trillion VND, or 13.1 percent, achieving 95.7 percent of its target for 2017, which is 15 percent credit growth.

Vietinbank also released its H1 business results, posting a pre-tax profit of 4.66 trillion VND, up 12 percent year on year and fulfilling 54 percent of this year’s target.

The bank mobilised capital worth 947 trillion VND, marking a 9.7 percent increase from early 2017, while its outstanding loans rose 9.6 percent to 767.8 trillion VND.

Le Duc Tho, General Director of the bank, said Vietinbank’s total assets reached 1,030 trillion VND at the end of June, up 9 percent from December 31, 2016.

In the near future, Tho said, Vietinbank would channel credit into the manufacturing value chain, hi-tech and clean agriculture, start-ups, and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Joint stock commercial banks also posted optimistic results in H1.

Sacombank announced that its pre-tax profit surged by 70 percent year on year to 428 billion VND, equal to 73 percent of its entire year’s target. Sacombank’s revenue from services touched 727 billion VND, up 27 percent year on year and accounted for 23 percent of the bank’s total revenue.

Notably, Sacombank settled 845 billion VND of its non-performing loans. Its credit growth and capital mobilisation also rose by 10.1 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively.

The OCB, with a pre-tax profit of 494 billion VND in H1, met 63 percent of its 2017 target. Its outstanding loans rose 25 percent year on year to 44.96 trillion VND, while its mobilised capital was 51.3 trillion VND, up 11 percent.

The same trend was also seen in TPBank and LienVietPostBank, which posted pre-tax profits of 483 billion VND and 900 billion VND, equal to 62 percent and 60 percent of their 2017 targets, respectively.

As per a recent survey on business trends of credit institutions, conducted by the State Bank of Vietnam’s Statistics Department, 64 percent of the credit institutions affirmed that business conditions in Q2 of 2017 noticeably improved compared to Q1.

Eighty-two percent of the credit institutions surveyed are optimistic that business conditions in 2017 will continue to improve and strengthen, as compared to 2016, the survey revealed. And 90.6 percent of them believe their pre-tax profit will see positive growth this year. The net income from both services and self-business is also expected to improve remarkably.-VNA