The Sai Gon – Ha Noi Commercial Bank (SHB) has announced its 2021 business plan with an expected pre-tax profit of VND5.555 trillion, or 70 percent higher than 2020.

This is an ambitious goal, analysts say, as SHB has just settled problems after admitting Habubank in 2016-2020.

As of the end of 2020, the problems had been mostly solved, with a 10-year high profit and 10-year low bad debt ratio.

Also in 2020, SHB fulfilled all three pillars of Basel II Accord, forming a safe foundation for an effective growth period following its business strategy. The bank has also fulfilled the plan to increase capital to VND17.5 trillion through dividend payments and share issuance.

ACB plans to announce its business targets at the shareholders’ meeting slated for April. It is expected that business targets would be equal or higher than 2020.

Vietcombank, one of the big four bankd, plans to obtain pre-tax profit of VND25.2 trillion, up by 12 percent, and reduce the bad debt ratio to below 1 percent this year. Meanwhile, MBBank has projected the 25-30 percent profit increase in 2021. VietiBank strives for the 10-20 percent growth rate.

As for OCB, the targeted pre-tax profit of the bank is expected to increase by 15 percent to VND5.56 trillion. Maritime Bank wants a pre-tax profit higher by 30 percent.

Most of the forecasts released by prestigious institutions project higher growth rates for banks in 2021. VN Direct believes that banks’ profit will be higher in 2021 because the banking system serves as the major channel used by the government to stimulate economic growth.

VCSC also predicts that banks will see their profits increase in 2021 because it is highly possible that the State Bank will maintain a loose monetary policy to promote economic development. Bad debt is not a big problem now because banks have strengthened provisioning against risks.

According to SSI Research, banks’ NIM in 2021 will increase by 15 percent compared with 2020 in the context of the 12-13 percent credit growth rate of the whole banking sector.

Meanwhile, non-interest income is expected to increase by 8.7 percent compared with the last year thanks to the recovery of the income from service fees.

Bank shares saw impressive price increases on the first days of 2021, serving as the ‘pillar’ of the stock market as the Covid-19 pandemic had a negative impact on investors’ decisions.

Sacombank shares (STB) have seen prices increasing from VND10,000 per share in early January to VND19,000 per share, while VP Bank shares (VPB) from VND20,000 to VND42,000. 

M. Ha

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