VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam plans to list 10 banks on the stock market this year, but only four have implemented the listing so far. Others are still consulting with shareholders.

Banks have to list shares on the bourse

Under a Ministry of Finance decision, all 730 equitized enterprises with more than 100 shareholders will have to list their shares on the bourse this year. 

These include 10 commercial banks, namely OCB, ABBank, Techcombank, Nam A Bank, Maritime Bank, Viet A Bank, TP Bank, SeABank, HD Bank and LienVietPost Bank.

The banks have mentioned the listing, but later canceled plans for different reasons.

In April, shareholders of many banks approved plans to list on the bourse. But to date, only four of them have fulfilled the plans.

VIB Bank has listed 564 million shares on UpCom since January 9, but plans to shift to the HCMC bourse (HOSE) next year. Kien Long Bank listed 300 million shares on UpCom on June 29.

Vietnam plans to list 10 banks on the stock market this year, but only four have implemented the listing so far. Others are still consulting with shareholders.

VP Bank shares debuted on HOSE on August 17 and LienVietPost Bank entered UpCom on October 5.

Most recently, HOSE confirmed it has received an application for listing shares from HD Bank. The bank is negotiating with foreign investors on the plan to raise $300 million for a 20 percent stake before its official listing, according to Nikkei.

As for other banks, the dates for listing are not known.

Nikkei said that Vietnam has made slow progress in listing its banks with only four lenders having gone public in the three-year period and 13 out of 35 banks having listed so far.

Ho Hung Anh, chair of Techcombank, said at the 2017 annual shareholders’ meeting that the bank’s listing plan has been put on the table of the State Bank, affirming that the bank would list shares immediately after getting approval. 

All Techcombank’s shares have been deposited at the Vietnam Securities Depository since late 2016. However, the listing of the bank has been delayed many times.

AB Bank is also awaiting approval from SSC, while OCB has decided that it would list shares on HOSE in 2018.

Nam A Bank and Maritime Bank failed to list shares this year. At its shareholders’ meeting, only 3 percent of Maritime Bank approved the listing on UpCom. 

Viet A Bank and SeABank are also likely to put shares into transactions on UpCom, while TP Bank decided that its shares would be available on HOSE.

Nguyen Tri Hieu, a banking expert, said when listing shares, banks will have to observe information exposure. This means that figures about business performance and bad debt will have to be made public. This is why some banks have hesitated to list.