Vietnamese Banks Report Impressive Profits in Q1

Joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam have recently announced hefty figures on their pretax profits in the first quarter of 2009 despite huge difficulties caused by global economic slowdown spilling over from 2008 into this year.

 

The biggest moneymaker was Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) with VND450 billion (US$26.63 million) in the period. The HCM City-based has had total assets of VND136.14 trillion, deposits and savings of VND89.47 trillion and outstanding loans of VND36.9 trillion to date.

 

ACB is followed by Saigon Thuong Tin Joint Stock Commercial Bank (Sacombank), Lien Viet Joint Stock Commercial (LienVietBank), and Maritime JS Commercial Bank (Maritime Bank) with pretax profits of VND350 billion, VND235 billion, and VND230 billion, respectively.

 

Good earning results in the first three months mostly came from credit activities rather than from other banking services as previously.

 

In the period, 65 per cent of Sacombank’s profit was from lending activities, 13 per cent from services and 22 per cent from other sources. A similar contribution to its profits has been reported by DongA Bank as its revenues from non-credit activities, including gold and forex trading, accounted for 35 per cent.

 

ACB, Vietnam’s biggest listed company by market value, said that the bank is still upbeat about its credit growth with rate expected at 90 per cent for this year.

 

Such impressive figures on profits have proven good performance of domestic joint stock commercial banks over the months.

 

Earlier this year, commercial banks in Vietnam were more cautious in setting profit targets amid the global economic crisis. Bankers believed that profits in 2009 would be higher than last year when the banking industry experienced the worst volatility in both monetary policies and inflation. (Vietnam Economic Times)