VietNamNet Bridge – Profits from lending still make up a large proportion of banks’ total profits, but bad debt remains a problem.

Under a plan on applying Basel II standards on a trial basis, 10 commercial banks, namely BIDV, VietinBank, Vietcombank, Techcombank, ACB, VP Bank, MB, Maritime Bank, Sacombank and VIB, will finish the trial period in 2018.

Dau Tu Chung Khoan quoted Le Quang Hai, consultancy director of KTC Auditing, as commenting that the banks’ major income is still from lending.

VP Bank’s financial report showed its net profit in the first nine months of 2016 at over VND10 trillion, far higher than that of some commercial banks. The success is explained by the fact that VP Bank now owns a leading consumer finance company.

VP Bank’s success in consumer finance could be a prompt for other banks to jump on the bandwagon. A joint venture between MB and a Japanese partner has been set up, while banks where the state holds controlling stakes are also considering joining the market.

Hai, after analyzing the financial reports of the 10 banks, found that VP Bank has the biggest margin between deposit and lending interest rates, 8 percent on average.

Meanwhile, the margin at Sacombank is 1.95 percent only.

The average interest rate gaps are now 3.3 percent for state-owned banks and 4.5 percent for joint stock banks.

However, at many banks, the proportion from non-credit activities has been increasing. Vietcombank had the lowest proportion of income from lending in the fourth quarter of 2016, at 74.6 percent.

Its net profit from services was as high as VND2.1 trillion. It had VND1.85 trillion from foreign exchange trade and VND1.939 trillion from other activities.

Sacombank and Techcombank, which are among the best joint-stock banks, also have low proportions of income from lending. Sacombank earned VND500 billion from forex trading in the first nine months of 2016, equal to that of Vietinbank and BIDV – the two big banks owned by the state.

VIB, Techcombank and MB are joint stock banks which have relatively high ratios of net profit on outstanding loans – 4.5-4.9 percent, while the figure is just 3.3 percent for state-owned banks.

Of the nine banks which have released their updated financial reports (Maritime Bank has only released the 2015 finance report), Vietcombank is the ‘cleanest’ bank as it has bought back all the bad debts it sold to VAMC some years ago.

Meanwhile, bad debts still burden other banks. Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep reported that BIDV had to make provision of VND9 trillion against risks for loans, which is equal to more than half of the VND17 trillion of profit.