Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade

Type	Joint-stock company
Traded as	HOSE: CTG
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1988 (1988)
Headquarters	Hanoi
Area served	Vietnam
Key people	Lê Đức Thọ (chairman) Trần Minh Bình (director)
Revenue	55.775 bn VND (2011)[1]
Operating income	8,392 bn VND (2011)
Net income	6,259 bn VND (2011)
Owner	State Bank of Vietnam
Website	www.vietinbank.vn

Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietnamese: Ngân hàng Thương mại Cổ phần Công thương Việt Nam), trading as Vietinbank, is a state-owned Vietnamese bank. As of 2023, it is Vietnam's second-largest bank, with VND 1,800 trillion (around $76 billion) of assets under management.^[2]

According to the VNR500 (Top 500) ranking, Vietinbank is Vietnam's 13th largest company.^[3] It has a market capitalisation of VND 53.22 trillion (around $2.5 billion) as of late 2012, making it one of Vietnam's largest listed companies.^[4]

Major customers with loans of several hundreds of millions of dollars include PetroVietnam^[5] and Vietnam Electricity (EVN).^[6] Vietinbank also has strategic partnerships with the International Finance Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

History

The Vietnam Industrial and Commercial Bank (Incombank) was set up by the State Bank of Vietnam in 1991 as one of the first four commercial banks after the introduction of a two-tier banking system.^[7] Other sources suggest that the bank was set up in 1988.^[8] By 2000 the bank had total assets of 48.7 trillion VND, deposits of 40.7 trillion and debts of 26.2 trillion. Loans were granted mostly to large government programmes in priority sectors such as postal services, communication, processing, and construction material, but there was also lending for non-commercial purposes such as flood relief and training funds for poor students.^[9]

As other major commercial state banks, Vietinbank was pressured by the government to continue lending to unprofitable state companies.^[10] It was subject to a 1 trillion VND recapitalisation by the government in December 2002, effectively doubling the bank's charter capital (from 1.045 trillion in 2001). It was the only of the four major state banks not part of the second stage of recapitalisation in 2003.^[10]

Incombank changed its name to Vietinbank in April 2008.^[8] It was listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange in July 2009.^[8]

Vietinbank had two major increases in its chartered capital in 2011 by issuing more shares to existing shareholders, thereby increasing chartered capital to 20.23 trillion VND by the end of the year (around $1 billion). At this point, state shareholders held 80.3% of the bank's shares.^[11]

Ownership

Vietinbank is majority owned by the State Bank of Vietnam. It holds 64% of the bank's shares after selling 20% to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group according to Bloomberg^[12] and 67.4% according to estimates published by Gafin.vn.^[13] Mitsubishi UFC is projected to hold 20%/ 16.1% and the International Finance Corporation 10%/ 8.4%.

Strategic partnerships

The International Finance Corporation became Vietinbank's first strategic partner in October 2010, when it signed a cooperation agreement with the bank^[8] and acquired 10% of its shares.^[13]

Vietinbank announced its second strategic partnership with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in December 2012. Mitsubishi UFJ is going to buy 20% of Vietinbank's shares for 15.5 trillion dong ($743 million).^[12] Mitsubishi UFJ wants to gain a foothold in Vietnam's growing markets for retail lending and international banking transactions, while Vietinbank hopes to improve corporate governance and risk management.^[12]

Alleged frauds

Huynh Thi Huyen Nhu, a former Acting Head of the Dien Bien Phu Transaction Office of VietinBank, was indicted of stealing 4 trillion VND (equivalent of 230 million dollars) from 3 major banks, 9 companies and 3 individuals.^[14] This was considered the biggest bank fraud in 2014.

During the trial, some lawyers believed that VietinBank, where Nhu worked for and used its credentials to the scheme, must take responsibility for the swindling case and compensate the victims in the case. However, VietinBank has denied its responsibility in the case, stating that the institutions and individuals were cheated when dealing with Nhu personally, not VietinBank.^[14] Meanwhile, the bank’s computing system was only the instrument for Nhu to implement her cheating. The amount expected to be lost from this case was roughly 3200 billion VND (equivalent of 150 million dollars).^[15]

Subsidiaries

References

Bibliography

• Kovsted, Jens, Rand, John & Tarp, Finn (2005): From Monobank to Commercial Banking - Financial Sector Reforms in Vietnam. NIAS Press & ISEAS, Singapore