Rosy half-year profits across the board at Vietnamese banks

Most Vietnamese banks are firmly en route to their full-year profit figures

Accordingly, leading state lender Vietcombank raked in more than VND14.5 trillion ($630.43 million) in pre-tax profit, a 36 per cent jump on-year, reaching over 56 per cent of its full-year profit target of VND25.58 trillion ($1.1 billion).

Similarly, VietinBank counted an estimated VND13 trillion ($565.2 million) in pre-tax profit in the first six months of this year, reaching three quarters of its full year target which was pegged at VND16.8 trillion ($730.43 million).

Techcombank and VPBank, two leading players operating in the joint stock model, have also posted upbeat results. Along with this, Techcombank reported achieving VND11.5 trillion ($500 million) in its pretax profit against full-year target of VND20 trillion ($869.57 million). Particularly, the bank’s call deposit volume with low mobilisation cost soared more than 55 per cent on-year.

On the same note, VPBank’s consolidated pre-tax profit surpassed VND9 trillion ($391.3 million), up 37.2 per cent on-year and equal to 54 per cent of the full-year profit target of VND16.65 trillion ($723.9 million).

Military-run MB reaped approximately VND8 trillion ($347.83 million) in consolidated pre-tax profit during the period, up 56 per cent on-year and reaching over 60 per cent of full-year target which was set at VND13.2 trillion ($573.9 million).

Not only large-scale banks, smaller banks have also reported very rosy first-half profit results. PGBank posted VND175 billion ($7.6 million) in pre-tax profit during the period, up 58 per cent on-year and equal to 56 per cent of full-year plan.

Kienlongbank reached VND805.7 billion ($35 million) in pre-tax profit in H1, up 409 per cent on-year and reaching 80.6 per cent of the full-year profit target.

Ho Chi Minh City-based Saigonbank posted VND137 billion ($5.96 million) in pre-tax profit during the period, completely reaching its full-year target.

According to Vu Quang Lam, chairman of Saigonbank, as COVID-19 is showing no sign of ending soon, the bank has set a prudent profit target to ensure stable and efficient operations as well as stock value.

In the second quarter, Saigonbank scaled up spending on provisioning, bringing the total to VND31.4 billion ($1.37 million) in H1, more than five times that of the corresponding period last year.

Meanwhile, Tran Tuan Anh, general director of Kienlongbank, said that like for other banks, provisioning has been a growing pressure on Kienlongbank amid COVID-19 complications, Anh noted.

For instance, in Q2, provisioning cost at MB doubled compared to a year prior, reaching VND2.43 trillion ($105.65 million), bringing the bank’s cumulative provisioning sum to VND4.25 trillion ($184.8 million) in H1.

MB reported having a total of VND2.53 trillion ($110 million) in non-performing loans (NPLs) by the end of June 2021, accounting for 0.76 per cent of the bank’s total outstanding balance, a drop of 22 per cent on-year.