Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (HoSE: MSB) has achieved significant milestones in the first half of 2023, surpassing over 50% of the year’s profit target with a steady growth of net interest income and non-interest income. Despite economic volatility, MSB remains committed to sustainable growth, focusing on enhancing customer experience through cutting-edge technology.
As of June 30, 2023, MSB’s total assets reached an impressive VND 237.8 trillion, marking a remarkable increase of 11.8% compared to December 31, 2022. The bank’s customer loans for the first six months recorded nearly VND 136,600 billion, a substantial 13.2% growth since the beginning of the year, surpassing the industry average. Key contributors to this growth were individual customers and small and medium-sized businesses. Furthermore, customer deposits for the same period reached approximately VND 126,300 billion, showing a slight increase of 7.8% compared to the end of 2022, with savings and margin deposits experiencing particularly strong growth, at 24% each.
The total net income in the first six months of the year amounted to nearly VND 6,400 billion, reflecting an impressive increase of 23.2% compared to the same period in 2022. The bank’s service activities’ net profit witnessed a substantial surge of 86%, with non-interest income contributing over 31% to the total operating income. This remarkable performance underscores MSB’s efforts in transforming and diversifying its revenue structure, especially in the face of challenging market conditions. The bank’s net interest income experienced steady growth, thanks to flexible lending mechanisms, robust customer files, and efficient capital management, leading to an impressive net interest margin of 4.26% over the last four quarters, consistently remaining at a high level in the market.
In addition to its stable and safe growth, MSB remains focused on optimizing costs, achieving a cost-to-revenue (CIR) ratio of 30.41% as of the end of June. This effective coordination between cost management and profitability enhancement resulted in the bank achieving a consolidated profit before tax of VND 3,548 billion for the first half of 2023, equivalent to 56% of the annual plan.
MSB continues to prioritize operational safety, maintaining its individual non performing loan ratio (NPL) at a controlled level of 1.73% as of June 30, 2023. The bank has actively made provisions for credit risks, ensuring operational safety standards and preparedness for potential unfavorable scenarios in the near future. Additionally, MSB has strengthened its loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) and short-term funds for medium and long-term loans (Mtlt), reaching 68.31% and 31.92% respectively, well within regulatory limits. MSB also boasts a high individual capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 12.7%.
Looking ahead to the next six months, MSB aims to further increase non-interest income while maintaining its core business activities. Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO of the Bank, stated, “This shift aligns with MSB’s current strategy of reducing exposure to businesses with potential volatility while optimizing revenue from other activities such as card services, payment, foreign currency trading, and investment banking services. Building a revenue structure with a significant proportion of non-interest income will support sustainable and stable growth in the long run.”
To this end, the bank will continue to enhance customer experience journeys (CJs) with streamlined processes for credit card registration, unsecured loans, mortgage loans, and online purchase of life/non-life insurance. MSB will invest in key projects to optimize the cost-to-revenue ratio, increase CASA demand deposits, and improve overall liquidity, reducing capital mobilization costs while enhancing operational efficiency. Embracing digitization will enable MSB to better serve customers, making the retail banking segment a key growth driver, thus diversifying operational risks. With a promising outlook characterized by population growth, increasing GDP per capita, shifting consumer habits toward cashless transactions, rising internet usage, and technology preference, MSB identifies significant potential for growth in the retail banking segment in Vietnam.
With favorable expectations regarding the state’s supportive policies and flexible operational strategies combined with the bank’s existing potential, MSB anticipates positive growth in the coming quarters, aiming to achieve its target set out at the General Meeting of Shareholders in April.