Banks continuously reported profits up to billions of USD

	Banks plan to pay cash dividends for first time in three years
	State-owned banks under capital increase pressure
	Banks are concerned that credit risk will increase slightly in 2023

Many banks kept stable and sustainable growth in 2022

Up to now, 26 banks have announced their business results and financial statements for 2022, of which six have achieved pre-tax profit of more than VND20,000 billion. However, the current champion still belonged to Vietcombank, with its pre-tax profit in 2022 reaching nearly VND37,360 billion, an increase of nearly 36% compared to the previous year. The main driving force behind this bank's continued high growth came from an increase in net interest income of nearly VND11,000 billion and a reduction in risk provision expenses of more than VND2,000 billion.

The second place belonged to Techcombank, with a pre-tax profit of about VND25,600 billion, up 10% compared to the previous year. That was thanks to the strong growth of Techcombank's total business income in 2022. In addition, interest income reached VND30.3 trillion, up 13.5% compared to the previous year, main thanks to credit portfolio growth.

Next was BIDV with VND23,058 billion, up 70% compared to 2021; MB with nearly VND22,730 billion, up 37.5% over the previous year and reaching 111.8% of the year plan. Although business results declined in the fourth quarter of 2022, thanks to the growth of net interest income and foreign exchange business, MB's net profit from operating activities still increased by 25.3% compared to the previous year, while provision expenses were almost unchanged, thus helping to increase the profit for the whole year.

Similarly, at VPBank, although its consolidated profit after tax in the fourth quarter decreased by nearly 46% compared to the same period in 2021, thanks to the positive business results in the previous quarters, the profit before tax for the whole year still reached nearly VND21,220 billion, up 48% compared to the previous year.

VietinBank ranked 6th with VND21,113 billion, up 20% compared to 2021. In addition, there were three banks with a pre-tax profit of more than VND10,000 billion, namely ACB, with more than VND17,000 billion, followed by VIB and HDBank.

Along with banks with high profits, in 2022, despite many economic difficulties, many banks had high-profit growth of more than 50%. For example, at SHB, pre-tax profit in 2022 reached more than VND9,658 billion, up 54% compared to last year. And there were other banks, such as ACB, LienVietPostBank, SeABank, PGBank, and Saigonbank.

Especially in 2022, the bank with the highest profit growth of 208% was Eximbank, reaching VND3,709 billion in pre-tax profit. The reason was that most of Eximbank's business segments had positive profits, of which net interest income increased by 59% over the same period, reaching VND5,592 billion. In addition, profit from service activities reached VND514 billion, up 19%, and profit from foreign exchange business increased by 54% to VND606 billion. Additionally, the bank greatly reduced provision expenses when 2022 was only at VND103 billion, down 90% over the same period.

On the contrary, there were still some banks whose profit in 2022 was going backwards. Specifically, NBC's profit before tax for the whole year decreased by 46% compared to the previous year, reaching only VND1.24 billion. However, according to the explanation from NCB, in 2022, the bank withdrew interest, stopped accruing, and made provisions for overdue debts and bad debts according to the regulations of the State Bank. Moreover, the bank has made provisions according to the restructuring plan and continued to apply the policy of supporting interest rates for customers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kienlongbank also saw a decrease of 32% in profit, reaching VND682 billion; OCB decreased by 20%, reaching VND4,389 billion; and ABBank decreased by 13%, reaching VND1,702 billion.

Entering 2023, the banking industry's growth is forecasted with more caution.

Experts at VNDirect Securities Company also maintained a cautious stance on the outlook for the banking industry in the first half of 2023 because of liquidity stress and corporate bond risks. According to VNDirect, the profit growth of the banking industry will decelerate in 2023, forecast to reach 10-11% in 2023-2024 (compared to 32% in 2022).