Vietcombank targets 15pc profit rise in 2012

HANOI: Vietcombank, Vietnam's third-largest partly private lender, expects a 15 percent rise in 2012 gross profit after boosting its registered capital last year, a company executive told a state-run magazine.

For 2011, the lender expects gross profit slightly above its target of 5.65 trillion dong ($268.6 million), Dau Tu Chung Khoan (Securities Investment) quoted Chairman Nguyen Hoa Binh as saying in comments seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Vietcombank, or the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, had projected gross profit to edge up 3.1 percent in 2011 while keeping its credit growth below 20 percent.

Binh did not say how much the Hanoi-based lender earned last year.

Shares in Vietcombank lost 4.59 percent to close at 20,800 dong ($0.99) each on Tuesday as investors returned after a market holiday on Monday. The VN Index fell 0.44 percent to close at 350.00 points on Tuesday.

He said the banking sector would still face pressure in 2012 due to high interest rates, which he said remained "a barrier preventing businesses from accessing bank loans".

Vietnam's bank lending slowed to around 12 percent last year after expanding 27.65 percent in 2010. The country has aimed for an annual credit growth of 15-17 percent in 2012 to help the economy rise at least 6 percent.

The central bank said last month that interest rates on dong deposits would be cut to around 10 percent by the end of 2012, from the ceiling of 14 percent in 2011.

The State Bank of Vietnam has said it will set the annual credit growth target this year for several groups of banks depending on their size and performance, instead of a general target for the entire sector like last year.

Vietcombank became the country's third-largest lender by assets after state-owned BIDV went public on Dec. 28, having taken the second position among the country's 39 partly private banks.

Last September Vietcombank raised its registered capital by 12 percent to 19.7 trillion dong ($937 million) from 17.6 trillion dong earlier in 2011. The registered capital determines the size of a bank's loans and deposits.