Vietnam's banks prepare to go abroad

It is expected that by 2025, the state’s ownership ratio in state-owned banks may fall to 51 percent. 

However, the government has stated that in 2018-2020, it will increase the charter capital of the banks to be able to satisfy the requirements in Basel II, while the state will still hold at least 65 percent of total voting shares.

Vietnam hopes at least 2-3 its banks would be among top 100 biggest banks in terms of total assets and 3-5 banks will list their shares on foreign bourses.

BIDV is now leading in terms of total assets, and has the highest position among Vietnamese banks in Asian bank rankings.

BIDV ranks 157th out of 500 banks with total assets, according to The Asian Banker, followed by Vietcombank, at No 163rd, Vietcombank 341st, MBB 377th, Techcombank 386th, ACB 389th, VPBank 39th  and SHB 388th.  
 
Vietnamese banks are lagging far behind other regional banks. Thailand, for example, has Kasiconrnbank at 92nd and Siam Commercial bank at 87th.

If commercial banks, including BIDV, will see average asset growth rate of 10 percent per annum, after eight years, BIDV will have total assets equal to the bank ranked 100th in Asia.

Vietcombank is not the largest bank, but it has been the biggest money earner in recent years. Vietcombank shares are the most expensive in the stock market.

The bank is implementing its plan on selling 10 percent of shares after it missed its deal of selling shares to a Singaporean financial institution last year.

BIDV is still seeking strategic investors, while VietinBank still doesn’t have any big plan after the failure of the project on admitting PG Bank. The bank finally has merged with HD Bank instead of VietinBank.

State-owned banks are believed to be less dynamic than private banks. Analysts commented that private banks have seen growth rates soar and are likely to list shares on foreign bourses earlier than state-owned banks.

The Military Bank has the largest total assets among private banks, about VND330 trillion. The other big names, with total assets of around VND300 trillion, include ACB, Techcombank, SHB and VP Bank.

Of these, VP Bank and Techcombank have gained the most impressive growth rates. The former’s total asset growth rate in the last five years was 22.4 percent, while the latter’s was 14 percent. HD Bank is also a well known name with assets increasing rapidly in the last two years.

US$1=VND22,000

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