Ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service has announced its ratings report on Vietnam International Bank, also known as VIB, and other local banks in Viet Nam.

Moody’s has upgraded the VIB’s long-term local and foreign currency bank deposit and issuer ratings to B2 from B1.

The ratings agency has also changed the outlook for the local currency deposit and local and foreign currency issuer ratings of VIB from positive to stable. All other ratings were maintained.

As of June 30, 2018, VIB’s total assets had reached VND127.24 trillion (US$5.8 billion).

During the first half of 2018, the bank’s lending increased by 9.3 per cent to VND87.3 trillion while deposits grew 10.2 per cent to VND75.3 trillion.

In the first half of the year, VIB tripled its pre-tax profit from a year earlier to VND1.15 trillion, equivalent to 57 per cent of its 2018 target.

The bank expects its pre-tax profit to reach over VND2.5 trillion by the end of the year, 25 per cent higher than the target set by its shareholders.

Earlier this month, the bank announced that it had repurchased more than VND1.46 trillion worth of debt from the Viet Nam Asset Management Company (VAMC).

With this move, VIB was recognised by the State Bank of Viet Nam and VAMC as one of four banks which repurchased all bad debts that they sold to VAMC. Three others are Vietcombank, Techcombank and MBBank. — VNS