A survey by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) showed that nearly 50% of Vietnamese banks made lower pre-tax profit between January and June this year against the second half of 2012.
Half of Vietnamese banks see lower profit in first half of 2013
The biggest profit fall ranged from 20% to 30%, according to the survey on banks’ business trends conducted by the SBV’s Monetary Statistics and Forecast Department.
Only 30.4% of banks said that their business activities improved during the period, meanwhile 21.5% disclosed that they got worse business results.
The survey also indicated that the business environment from now to the end of the year (2013), still poses many risks, therefore, bad debts have remained the greatest challenge to customers.
Most banks said the risk-level of customer groups increased between January and June this year, thus, more than 50% of them forecast that their bad debt rate can only stay the same or rise by late 2013, compared to the end of 2012.
However, 71.4% of surveyed banks expect higher profits-- somewhere just below 10%-- in the second half of this year. Banks also think that interest rates, particularly lending interest rates, would probably continue falling in the next three to six months inclusive.
Up to 89.8% of banks interviewed said their outstanding loans would increase in number by late 2013 compared to the number at the end of last year.
