Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) has been recognised as the country’s leading SME Trade Bank by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), thanks to VIB’s trade financing US$276 million in the year ending June 30, 2018.

VIB was the only bank in Viet Nam to receive the ADB’s recognition, which honours leading partner banks in ADB’s Trade Finance Program (TFP) during the TFP Awards and Partners Dinner on Tuesday – the first day of the Global Trade Review’s annual conference in Singapore,

Based on transactions supported by TFP, VIB was Viet Nam’s leading bank in SMEs trade finance. Previously, the Vietnamese bank was awarded leading SME Trade Bank in 2015 and 2017.

VIB is one of 10 banks selected by ADB to join the TFP since 2009, aiming to provide companies with financial support to engage in import and export activities and improve their productivity and competence.

With the goal of providing trade finance support, TFP works with more than 240 banks. In 2017, the programme supported $4.48 billion in transactions and 2,822 small and medium-sized enterprises.

Recently, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the long-term local and foreign currency bank deposit and issuer ratings of VIB to B2 from B1. The ratings agency also changed the outlook for the local currency deposit and local and foreign currency issuer ratings of VIB to stable from positive. All other ratings were affirmed.

As of June 30, 2018, VIB’s total assets hit VND127.24 trillion ($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, 57 per cent of its 2018 target.

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