VietNamNet Bridge - Some bankers have been sent to prison, while others have quietly left the market. Some have lost all of their money, while others have been toppled during the restructuring of the banking sector.

 

 

The Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Bank (SHB) has reported a pre-tax profit of VND702 billion by the end of the third quarter. Its total assets have been reported reaching VND183 trillion, an increase of 3.1 percent in comparison with the second quarter of 2015.

SHB estimated that after admitting VVF, a finance company, its total assets would reach VND200 trillion this year, while the pre-tax profit would reach VND1.12 trillion and the non-performing loans (NPL) would be curbed at below 3 percent of the outstanding loans.

The National Citizen Bank (NCB) has reported a profit of VND25.4 billion for the second quarter of the year, an increase of 42 times over the same period last year. 

Meanwhile, TP Bank has reported the pre tax profit of VND342 billion for the first half of the year and a very low NPL ratio at 0.96 percent of outstanding loans.

The figures showed restructured banks all have gained impressive business results after four years of restructuring. SHB has been dealing with big difficulties after it admitted Habubank. 

TPBank has recovered its accumulated loss and begun making profit, one year earlier than expected. 

The banking sector has been brought on a normal track. The State Bank has dealt with 11 joint stock banks, three of which have been bought at zero dong, and some foreign bank branches. The banks, after restructuring, have been operating well with liquidity improved, NPL decreasing and total assets increasing.

Macroeconomic indexes show stability has been regained: the inflation rate is at below one percent, the lowest level in the last 10 years, the interbank interest rate is 9 at 9 percent. Meanwhile, there is no ‘gold fever attack’ and the foreign exchange reserves have increased from $8 billion to $38 billion.

Bankers put into prison

“Banking is really a hazardous game” was the comment in a local newspaper about the arrest of a series of bankers in the first months of 2015.

Pham Cong Danh, former president of the Vietnam Construction Bank (VNCB), Ha Van Tham, former president of OceanBank and Ta Ba Long, former chair of GP Bank are three of them.

Analysts found interesting similarities of the three big banks. They were not trained to work as bankers and they had never experienced as bank officers until they became the owners of the banks after some merger & acquisition deals. And under their ‘reign’, the banks met with a lot of big difficulties.

M. Ha