View of a transaction office of Sacombank in Hà Nội. Sacombank was among few medium and large banks that maintained a higher NIM in Q2 2023 compared to the same period last year. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Total pre-tax profit of the top 25 largest listed banks in the second quarter of 2023 reached about VNĐ61.6 trillion, down 3.1 per cent over the same period last year, according to a report of VNDirect Securities Company.

In the report, VNDirect said the ratio of net interest income (NIM) of the banks in the second quarter of 2023 decreased by 0.32 percentage points year-on-year to 3.41 per cent.

Nineteen out of 25 banks recorded a high decrease in NIM in the second quarter of 2023. In the group of medium and large banks, only Sacombank, VIB and VietinBank maintained a higher NIM compared to the same period last year. Specifically, VIB and VietinBank succeeded in taking advantage of interbank capital (with a sharp decrease in the second quarter of 2023) when the ratio of interbank capital to total capital of VIB and VietinBank increased by 4 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively, over the same period last year.

According to VNDirect, Sacombank's NIM improves strongly in 2023 when there is no longer pressure on accrued interest. Meanwhile, NIMs of VPBank, Techcombank, LPBank and TPBank continue to decline the most as the corporate bond and real estate markets still faced difficulties in liquidity.

The current account savings account (CASA) ratio of the entire banking industry showed an improvement from 17.6 per cent at the end of the first quarter of 2023 to 18.2 per cent at the end of the second quarter of 2023 when the deposit interest rate decreased continuously following the central bank’s four policy interest rate cuts.

VnDirect expects the cost of capital to fall more sharply when the third and fourth rate cut at the end of the second quarter of 2023 will take full effect from the second half of 2023 onwards. However, VNDirect’s analysts do not expect an immediate improvement in banks’ NIM as interest rate cuts remain the top priority to boost economic activity.

For the second half of this year, the analysts expect some banks such as MB and VIB, which have high personal loan ratios, low loan to deposit (LDRs) and low foreign currency capital to total capital, will have more opportunities to improve NIM compared to the remaining banks.

Under the report, VnDirect said at the end of the second quarter of 2023, the credit of the whole banking system increased by 4.7 per cent compared to the beginning of this year. The rise was lower than the growth rate of 9.4 per cent at the end of the second quarter of 2022, but significantly increased from 3.17 per cent at the end of May 2023.

In the second quarter of 2023, banks, which had a high lending ratio to the real estate industry, such as Techcombank and HDBank showed slow credit growth when the real estate market was still in a difficult period. Meanwhile, banks, which had a high ratio of retail lending, achieved impressive credit growth in the second quarter of 2023. It showed slight signs of recovery from consumer demand.

In the second half of this year, VNDirect expects banks, which have a high ratio of retail lending, such as VIB and ACB will have many opportunities to improve credit growth as Việt Nam is gradually moving into the initial recovery phase. In contrast, banks, which have a high ratio of real estate loans, may find it difficult to extend credit when Circular 06/2023 (effective from September 2023) will limit the ability to access capital of firms. — VNS