By the end of the second quarter, a number of commercial banks released business performance reports showing higher profits and positive prospects for the whole year.
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Key indicators such as net interest margin (NIM), return on average assets (ROAA), and return on average equity (ROAE) witnessed improvements compared to 2017, reaching 2.76%, 1.24% and 22.71%, respectively.
"Taking into Vietcombank's business performances in the first six months and its positive prospects, the bank is expected to exceed all targets set for this year," Pham Manh Thang, deputy general director of Vietcombank told local media.
The results are thanks to a shift in the bank's investment focus away from wholesale and towards the retail sector, while bad debts were tamed below the permitted threshold of 3.0%, Thang added.
Hanoi-based Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank) also maintained high level of profit growth, following more efforts put into tackling bad debts.
Its pre-tax profit in the first six months reached VND5.2 trillion (US$226.4 million), according to the lender's financial statement.
Le Duc Tho, general director of VietinBank, affirmed the lender is on track to achieve its target set for 2018, especially in capital mobilization, which is higher than the average growth rate of the banking indsutry.
During the January - June period, VietinBank repurchased its entire bad debts previously sold to Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC), Tho said.
The move, thus, would allow VietinBank to focus on its business performance in the time to come. Other commercial banks have not released their business performance reports for the first half of 2018 following a sharp increase in profit in previous quarters.
Notably, Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) posted pre-tax profit in the first five months this year at VND918 billion (US$40 million), up nearly 230% year-on-year and equivalent to 50% of its profit target set for 2018, its financial report has said.
As of June 26, Vietnam's credit growth was reported at 6.9%, down 0.64 percentage points from the same period last year, while bad debts accounted for 2.18% of total outstanding loans, below the 3% target set by the National Assembly, according to the State Bank of Vietnam.
