Statistics from 25 banks announced the financial statements, showing that in the first six months of 2019, the total profit before tax reached more than 53.6 trillion dong, up 18 percent over the same period.
In which, 18/25 banks had positive growth with the highest increase of 192 percent in Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB). Many other banks also had relatively high growth rates of 40 percent to 60 percent. For example, Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) reported profit of 439 billion dong, up 69 percent over the same period. Two medium-sized banks Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) and Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank) had a 58 percent increase in profit, reaching 1.82 trillion dong and 1,62 trillion dong respectively.
With big banks, only Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) had profit growth of over 40 percent. In the first six months, Vietcombank’s pre-tax profit increased by 41 percent to a record 11.303 trillion dong. Meanwhile, Sacombank also increased 47 percent, recorded 1.461 trillion dong pre-tax profit.
However, there were also seven profit banks in the first six months of 2019 lower than the same period as Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank), Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PGBank), An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ABBank), Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), VietNam Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VietABank) and Saigon Bank for Industry and Trade (Saigonbank).
In particular, Saigonbank and VietABank fell the most, respectively down 21 percent and 19 percent to 112 billion dong and 111 billion dong. Although the Quarter 2 business results changed more positively, these two banks still suffered a decline in profit in the first six months due to ineffective Quarter 1.
With a clear differentiation, the completion of the 2019 profit plan of banks was also different. Only 10/25 banks completed half of the year profit target, including: Vietcombank, Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank), Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB), VIB, TPBank, Sacombank, Sai Gon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LienVietPostBank), NamABank, SeABank, Vietnam Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VietBank) and Saigonbank.
In addition, some bank almost completed half of the year plan, including Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) (48 percent), Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) (49 percent), Kien Long Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Kienlongbank) (49 percent).
Completing more than half of the yearly target after six months will help many banks less pressure on the last months and may even grow more to exceed the plan.
However, for the remaining banks, not being able to complete 50 percent of the plan after six months did not show that progress was slow or difficult to achieve the goal. In fact, for the majority of banks, the third quarter and the fourth quarter is the time when business activities are vibrant and accelerating strongly due to high capital demand of businesses.
