Vietnamese banks see improved profitability

The profitability of Vietnamese banks has improved significantly, driven by growth in core income and robust macroeconomic conditions.
Vietnamese banks see improved profitability ảnh 1Assets of State-owned banks, including Vietcombank, accounted for 44 per cent of the banks’ total assets. (Photo: VCB)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Theprofitability of Vietnamese banks has improved significantly, driven by growthin core income and robust macroeconomic conditions.

A report from the State Bank of Vietnam(SBV) released this week showed the return on assets (ROA) ratio of the domesticbanking system surged to 0.7 percent by the end of November last year from 0.57percent at the end of the previous year while the return on equity (ROE) ratioalso increased by 1.42 percentage points to 9 percent.

Finance and finance leasing companieshad the highest ROA ratio in the system, with 3.02 percent. However, the ratedecreased compared to the 3.57 percent level recorded at the end of 2017. Thecompanies also topped in ROE with 13.83 percent.

The group of policy banks ranked secondwith the ROA ratio of 1.02 percent while cooperative banks had the lowest ROAat 0.42 percent.

The ROA ratios of State-owned and jointstock commercial banks were low at only 0.52 percent and 0.76 percent,respectively, much lower than the average rate of the entire industry.

However, industry insiders said the biggap in the ROA ratios of commercial banks and financial companies waspredictable as financial companies often hah higher profit margins than stateowned banks’ while their asset size was much smaller.

The SBV report also showed totalassets of credit institutions and foreign banks’ branches in Vietnam by the endof last November surged by 8.23 percent against the beginning of the year to 10.8quadrillion VND (463.5 billion USD).

Of the total assets, State-owned banks,including Agribank, Vietcombank, VietinBank, BIDV, GPBank, CBBank andOceanBank, made up 4.8 quadrillion VND, increasing by 5.18 percent andaccounting for 44 percent of the banks’ total assets. 

The figure for joint stock commercialbanks was 4.19 quadrillion VND, up 9.07 percent, while it was 154.89 trillion VNDfor finance and finance leasing companies, up 9.15 percent.
Notably, last year saw the assets ofjoint venture banks and wholly foreign-owned banks surge sharply by 18.34 percentto 1.1 quadrillion VND.

Besides the assets increase, equitycapital of credit institutions and foreign banks’ branches in Vietnam also roseby 10.02 percent to 785.66 trillion VND.

With regards to the capital adequacyratio (CAR), all credit institutions mentioned above have CAR at above the 9 percentlimit, of which the ratio at State-owned banks was 9.33 percent and joint stockcommercial banks was 11.13 percent. 

The short-term capital for mid- andlong-term lending ratio at State-owned and joint stock commercial banks wasreported at 31.43 percent and 33.77 percent, respectively, which helped thebanks meet a central bank requirement to lower the rate to below 40 percentfrom 2019.-VNS/VNA
VNA

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