Government backs capital hike plans for four State-owned banks

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Government supports the policy of allowing four State-owned banks to raise charter capital, said Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Le Minh Hung.

These four banks are Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank), Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV).

At a recent meeting reviewing last year’s performance of Vietinbank, Minh said four State-owned banks have contributed more than 92 trillion VND (roughly 4 billion USD) to the State budget in the past five years, of which 60 trillion VND was tax and 32 trillion VND was dividend payments.

But these banks have not raised charter capital during that period.

Minh said the Government has allowed the banks to increase capital as they need more funds to ensure growth and provide capital to the economy to help maintain the country’s high economic growth.

He said Vietinbank could retain profits in 2018 and 2019 to serve the capital hike plan, but profits of 2019 and 2020 need evaluation to be consistent with its business activities.

The Ministry of Finance is revising regulations to report to the Government about the capital hike plan for these banks.

Minh said Vietinbank needed to report to the finance ministry about its capital plans based on its 2019-20 growth and business results.

The Governor also said current regulations allow banks with more than 50 percent of State capital to issue bonds to increase tier 2 capital (supplementary capital) without permission from the central bank.

In 2019, Vietinbank reported profits of nearly 11.5 trillion VND (496 million USD), up 26 percent over its yearly plan and up 83 percent compared to 2018. By the end of the year, the bank had assets of 1.24 quadrillion VND, up 6.5 percent compared to the previous year, while outstanding loans reached 952 trillion VND, up 7.2 percent.

Total deposits increased 5 percent to 892 trillion VND. Its bad debt ratio was reduced to less than 1.2 percent from 1.59 percent in 2018.

Vietinbank targets a 10 percent growth for pre-tax profit this year on the basis of not raising capital. Total assets, loans and deposits are expected to growth by 6-10 percent.

However, in 2020, the Governor asked the bank to better control the growth of risky assets, quickly divest from non-performing investments in the past year and focus more on priority areas.
 In addition, the bank must reduce at least 30 percent of the internal bad debt and bad debt at Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC).

Vietcombank and BIDV have yet to disclose business results of the whole year of 2019, while BIDV posted a record pre-tax profit of 10.8 trillion VND last year./.