Vietnamese bank shares fall on inspection plan

An investor looks at an electronic board at a securities company. (Source: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese shares were mixed on November 23 on the two local exchanges, while banks fell amid concerns over the Government inspections next year on some financial institutions.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange inched down 0.7 percent to close at 599.99 points while the HNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange inched up 0.4 percent to end at 81.94 points.

The banking sector index lost 6.5 percent after the Government Inspectorate announced that the agency would conduct inspections on some financial institutions, including Vietcombank, on how they had complied with the law in their operations.

That announcement raised some public concerns about the future of the biggest banks such as Vietcombank (VCB), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Vietinbank (CTG) as they had the highest amount of non-performing loans among all banks in Vietnam, which threatened stability of the sector.

By the end of September, the three biggest banks had 23.8 trillion VND (1.06 trillion USD) in non-performing loans, equal to 56 percent of the banking sector's total performing loans.

Following the announcement and public concerns, VCB inched down 0.6 percent, BID fell 1.3 percent and CTG dropped 1 percent.

Other big stocks such as Vinamilk (VNM) and Masan Group (MSN) remained the ones that prevented the VN Index from making higher gains as investors continued to sell them strongly. VNM lost 3.1 percent and MSN dropped 1.4 percent at the end of the session.

On the positive side, the brokerage sector index gained 2.1 percent as the biggest brokerage firms rose on expectations that the new policy issued by the Ministry of Finance last week would help increase their earnings.

Last week, the finance ministry issued a circular that reduced the terms of listing on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCOM) for public companies that are unlisted on the two local stock exchanges.

This circular is expected to increase the number of listed companies on the UPCOM and help brokerage companies generate more earnings in the brokerage business.

At the end of November 23, the biggest brokerage firms such as Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI) gained 1.7 percent, HCM City Securities Corporation (HCM) jumped 2.4 percent and VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND) surged 2.3 percent.

The two local exchanges traded more than 232 million shares, worth 3 trillion VND (136.6 million USD), a slight increase of 4.3 percent from last week's daily trading value.-VNA