Banking & Finance

At a meeting with leaders of commercial banks on October 16, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked them to comply with the law and strengthen their governance capacity. Vietnam’s commercial bank sector has continually grown in scale, quality, and financial capacity. Total assets at joint stock commercial banks stand at VND7.5 quadrillion ($307.15 billion) and at four State-owned commercial banks more than VND7 quadrillion (286.7 billion).

Amid a plunging local stock market and a growing risk of global crisis, a number of foreign funds such as Dragon Capital, VinaCapital, and Dynam Capital have expressed a belief that Vietnam’s economy is superior to others around the world. The Economist magazine has listed countries most at risk from imported inflation and supply chain disruptions, and Vietnam is not among them.

Nam A Bank announced on October 12 that it has met Basel III standards on risk management. It has also implemented international financial reporting standards (IFRS) to enhance financial transparency and improve efficiency and safety in operations towards global international financial standards for deeper integration into international capital markets.

SSI Research has published a report on the estimated business results of 26 companies in the third quarter of this year. Twenty-four are forecast to post profit growth while two are forecast to see a fall in profits. Banking profits are believed to have grown strongly in the third quarter despite interest rate hikes putting pressure on the net interest margin (NIM). The leading banks in terms of profit were Vietcombank, BIDV, ACB, and VPBank.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has recently injected more than VND18.6 trillion ($779.22 million) into the market through open market operations (OMO) to support system liquidity, especially during the trading session on October 10.

Valuations on stocks in the VN30 is in a reasonable range and some have attractive prices. According to Agriseco Research, seven stocks with potential are BVH, HDB, GAS, HPG, KDH, SAB, and TPB.