Pre-tax profit of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) will hit a new record high of VND13 trillion (US$572.69 million) in 2018, up 26.8 per cent against this year, the SSI Retail Research forecast.

The bank’s credit growth next year is projected at 17.5 per cent while the capital mobilisation will increase by nearly 17 per cent, and the loan to deposit ratio (LDR) will swell from 76.5 per cent in 2017 to about 77.2 per cent.

Vietcombank’s net interest margin (NIM) will improve to 2.64 per cent, leading to the net interest income growth of 14.4 per cent, according to SSI.

The non-interest income is forecast to rise 26 per cent against this year. The net income from fees and commissions will grow 15 per cent.

On the other hand, it is expected that Vietcombank will earn some VND1 trillion from the capital divestment from Military Bank and Eximbank at the beginning of next year.

For this year, SSI did an upward revision of its forecast about Vietcombank’s total asset growth, deposit and credit to 14.1 per cent, 17.4 per cent and 18.2 per cent, respectively.

It also revised the forecast about Vietcombank’s 2017 pre-tax profit to VND10.29 trillion, up 20.8 per cent compared to the previous forecast.

On November 20, Vietcombank auctioned more than 13.2 million shares of Saigonbank, equal to 4.3 per cent of the bank’s charter capital, with the average successful auction price of VND20,100 per share.

At the same time, the bank sold a total of 6.6 million CFC shares with the successful bid price of VND11,554 per share.

SSI Retail Research estimates that Vietcombank will earn nearly VND266 billion from the sale of shares in SaigonBank and VND76.25 billion from the sale of shares in CFC. On December 31, 2016, the book value of the two investments was VND123.45 billion and VND70.95 billion, respectively. The total profit of the deals was about VND148 billion. — VNS