Vietnam International Bank (VIB) announced last week that it has repurchased more than VND1.46 trillion (US$64.2 million) 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 required all bad debts that they sold to VAMC. Three others are Vietcombank, Techcombank and MBBank.

Earlier in July, VIB released its financial report in the first half of 2018 with a profit of over VND1.15 trillion ($51 million), triple that of the same period last year, or equivalent to 57 per cent of the yearly target.

During the period, the banks’ net revenue reached VND2.7 trillion, up 56 per cent year-on-year, while its lending saw a yearly rise of 9 per cent to VND91.7 trillion.

From January to July, VIB’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) was maintained at 12.5 per cent while the cost-income ratio (CIR) stood at 49 per cent, according to the report.

The bank expects its 2018 pre-tax profit to hit VND2.5 trillion, surging 70 per cent year-on-year.

Currently, VIB has total assets of VND127 trillion, of which equity is VND9.6 trillion with a network of 162 branches in 27 key cities. VIB serves two million individual customers and tens of thousands of corporate customers.

VIB has a strategic shareholder which is Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), one of the 15 largest banks in the world.

VIB is also one of the top digital banks with MyVIB mobile banking application, developed under the co-ordinated design of digital banking experts from CBA. MyVIB has received many prestigious international awards from 2016 to 2017. — VNS