Moody's has upgraded Sacombank’s long-term foreign currency and local currency bank deposit and issuer ratings to B2 from B3. — Photo courtesy of the bank
Moody's Ratings has upgraded Saigon Thương Tín Commercial Joint-Stock Bank's long-term foreign currency and local currency bank deposits and issuer ratings to B2 from B3.
It has also upgraded Sacombank's baseline credit assessment (BCA) and adjusted BCA to b3 from caa1.
As for Sacombank's long-term foreign currency and local currency bank deposits and counterparty risk ratings (CRRs), it has upgraded it to B1 from B2, and its long-term counterparty risk (CR) assessment to B1 (cr) from B2 (cr).
According to Moody's, the upgrade of Sacombank's long-term ratings and BCA is driven by the significant cleanup of its legacy problem assets in recent years, which has helped improve its asset quality and profitability.
The upgrade also considers the bank's strong deposit franchise, which supports its funding and liquidity.
Sacombank has a low deposit concentration as most of its deposits are from individuals.
Its strong deposit franchise supports its ability to raise new deposits at lower rates than some of its similarly rated peers.
It also has a low reliance on market funds. Its market funds as a percentage of tangible banking assets was 7.7 per cent as of June 2023, among the lowest compared to its rated peers.
The bank's legacy problematic assets, after taking into account provisions, declined to 2.2 per cent of total assets as of December 2023 from 2.7 per cent a year earlier.
The provisions required for resolving the remaining problematic assets are low and should be manageable.
Moody's projects the bank's return on assets to remain at around 1 per cent because its profitability will be supported by higher net interest income.
EY Vietnam Consulting JSC awarded a certificate to Sacombank for fully adopting Basel III risk management standards, a set of high-level standards for banking risk management at the end of last year.
This year Sacombank has been ranked 322nd in the list of the world’s 500 most valuable banking brands by Brand Finance, the world's leading brand valuation consultancy.
This marks Sacombank's fifth consecutive year in the list, and an improvement in ranking from 422 in 2020.
These achievements are a testament to Sacombank's efforts at investing and advancing its management and business models in line with technological evolution.
As of 2023 its total assets were worth more than VNĐ674 trillion (US$27 billion), an increase of 13.9 per cent since the beginning of the year. It had deposits of VNĐ578 trillion at year-end, up 11.3 per cent from a year earlier.
Its capital adequacy ratio was 9.1 per cent, and loans-to-deposits and net interest margin ratios were 82.8 per cent and 3.9 per cent.
ROA and ROE were 1.2 and 18.3 per cent, 0.3 and 4.5 percentage points up.
Sacombank has more than 18 million customers. — VNS