Vietnam Banking Industry: Cautious Growth, Strengthening Sustainable Foundation
In 2024, the Vietnamese banking industry will maintain sustainable business results with good resilience. Credit growth will exceed the target (reaching 15.08%), interest rates will remain stable at a low level... are ideal macro factors to control inflation at 3.63% and promote economic growth to reach 7.09%.
For commercial banks, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) reached 14.6% in the 2020-2024 period. The total operating income of commercial banks reached VND 747 trillion, up 13.9% over the previous year; of which, interest income accounted for 75-78% in the past 5 years and has an increasing trend. This shows that commercial banks still depend on credit activities with net interest income playing a key role, which means pressure to control credit risk debt and asset quality.
Commercial banks' profits in 2024 continued to record a record of more than VND260 trillion, up 16.8% over the previous year. Along with that, the profit differentiation between large and small banks is increasingly evident. The total after-tax profit of the group of banks with a scale of less than VND300 trillion increased by negative 11.5%.
In 2025, the banking industry is forecast to continue to grow thanks to the State's policies focusing on promoting development. According to a survey by Vietnam Report, the industry's five outstanding growth opportunities include: Promoting the development of digital financial products (90.3%); Increasing investment in digital transformation (74.2%); Vietnam's economic growth prospects (64.5%); Amended laws (51.6%); Streamlining the State management apparatus (41.9%).
In the context of the global economy with many uncertain factors, the ability to control credit risks remains one of the biggest challenges. Bad debt - which used to be a major bottleneck of the banking system - has gone through its most difficult period, but maintaining good asset quality and strengthening the reserve buffer is still a big problem to ensure the stability and resilience of the entire system in the coming time.
Asset quality of the entire banking sector is expected to continue to improve in the context of good economic growth and significantly reduced pressure from bad debts. In general, the bad debt ratio at commercial banks peaked in the third quarter of 2023 and was partially contained when Circular 02/2023/TT-NHNN was issued. In terms of value, total bad debt of commercial banks exceeded VND 300 trillion by the end of the first quarter of 2025, up 16.8% over the same period in 2024 and up 13.4% over the beginning of the year.
Vietnam Report's research report also said that the increase in bad debt is expected to be moderate and under control, thanks to banks proactively and cautiously setting aside additional provisions for potentially risky debts. The total credit risk provisions of commercial banks in the first quarter of 2025 were VND 253 trillion, covering 84.4% of bad debt. The bad debt coverage ratio (LLR) of commercial banks is relatively stable, but the figure has dropped below 100% since the third quarter of 2023 and has not fully recovered.
There is also a clear differentiation in the reserve buffer between groups of different sizes. Commercial banks with assets of over 1 quadrillion always have enough resources to set aside reserves, and LLR is always above 125%, although it cannot avoid the downward trend. In the group with assets under 300 trillion VND, LLR is completely opposite, falling below 40% from 2023, passing the bottom of 29% in the second quarter of 2024 and currently increasing by 38%.
Human resource restructuring - a bright spot in digital transformation of the banking industry
Digital transformation has become a top priority for the banking industry. Labor productivity has also achieved many remarkable achievements. The total operating income/person/month of the group of mass commercial banks increased steadily from 149.2 million in 2021 to 194.3 million in 2024 and 198.7 million in the first quarter of 2025.
The banking industry is witnessing major changes in its personnel structure as an inevitable consequence. According to the financial reports of public commercial banks, in the first quarter of 2025, the total number of employees decreased by 2,147 people, reflecting the trend of streamlining the apparatus and cutting personnel.
Some banks have reduced the number of transaction offices to streamline the system and shift their focus to digital transaction channels. According to a survey by Vietnam Report, criteria related to digital platforms such as Safe and secure transactions (55.2%) and Convenient and stable mobile banking applications (53.5%) are more important to customers when choosing banking services than Easy access to transaction offices and ATMs (27.6%). This shows that instead of the number of transaction offices, only the number of online transactions is an important measure of the ability to reach and serve customers in the digital age.
The Top 10 Reputable Vietnamese Commercial Banks ranking is the result of independent and objective research by Vietnam Report, published annually on VietNamNet Newspaper since 2016. Banks are evaluated and ranked based on 3 main criteria: (1) Financial capacity shown in the most recent financial report; (2) Media reputation assessed by Media Coding method; (3) Survey of research subjects and stakeholders.
| The announcement ceremony of the Top 10 prestigious Vietnamese commercial banks in 2025 is expected to be held in August 2025 in Ho Chi Minh City, within the framework of the Vietnam CEO Summit 2025 - the theme "Digital Brands and the Future of Vietnam's National Brands", with the participation of Professor John A. Quelch, "brand wizard" of Harvard Business School and many other typical business leaders. |
(Source: Vietnam Report)
Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/top-10-ngan-hang-thuong-mai-viet-nam-uy-tin-nam-2025-2409904.html
![[Maritime News] Wan Hai Lines invests $150 million to buy 48,000 containers](https://vphoto.vietnam.vn/thumb/402x226/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/6/20/c945a62aff624b4bb5c25e67e9bcc1cb)
![[Infographic] Party Committee of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism: Marks of the 2020 - 2025 term](https://vphoto.vietnam.vn/thumb/402x226/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/6/22/058c9f95a9a54fcab13153cddc34435e)
Comment (0)