A client makes a transaction at a branch of SeAbank. — Photo courtesy of SeABank

The Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) completed its business plan with many positive growth indicators last year.

The world and domestic economic situation had many changes last year. By flexibly shifting business direction, the bank has focused on digital technology, prioritised green credit development and opened new fee collection products.

The bank's total assets reached VNĐ266.1 trillion (US$11.1 billion) by the end of December 31 last year, a year-on-year increase of 15 per cent.

Its charter capital is at nearly VNĐ25 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 22.32 per cent, helping the bank improve its capital capacity.

Strong financial resources help SeABank focus on promoting digital technology and optimising technology to bring customers convenient products and services with many positive experiences when using the bank’s financial services.

Diversifying products, improving service quality, cross-selling products as well as boosting technology application has helped increase the total number of transaction customers at SeABank to more than three million customers.

The bank recorded more than 32.3 million transactions on digital platforms last year, a year-on-year growth of 157 per cent, and more than 71 per cent of newly-opened accounts are registered online through eKYC.

This demonstrates the bank's efforts to attract new customers as well as maintain existing ones, contributing to the growth of mobilised funds to VNĐ144,840 billion last year, rising nearly 125.4 per cent year-on-year. In which the Current Account Savings Account (CASA) proportion continued to grow compared to previous years, reaching 11.5 per cent of total deposits.

Along with that, SeABank's total outstanding loans also reached nearly VNĐ180 trillion, an increase of more than 116 per cent compared to 2022.

Accompanying corporate and individual customers during the recovery period of the economy, SeABank has implemented many preferential policies such as reducing interest rates, reducing fees to support businesses and individuals, and offering preferential loan package with a limit of trillions of Vietnamese đồng.

The total amount of reduced interest for existing customers reached VNĐ407.28 billion last year.

Facing many challenges, SeABank still ensures safety in its operations with the bad debt ratio controlled below 2 per cent (1.94 per cent) because the bank is proactive in using resources to cover, control and recover bad debt, quick liquidity reserve ratio reached 20.2 per cent and 30-day solvency ratio for Vietnamese đồng reached 67.56 per cent.

These efforts have brought SeABank more than VNĐ4.6 trillion in pre-tax profit, completing the 2023 business plan, corresponding to a return on equity ratio (ROE) of 13.03 per cent.

The past year is also a year with many milestones for SeABank, as it is honoured with many major awards domestically as well as internationally: Top 1000 World Bank; Top 100 Sustainable Enterprises in Việt Nam; Top 100 Most Valuable Brands in Việt Nam 2023; and Best places to work in Asia 2023.

In addition, SeABank continues to be rated Ba3 by Moody's for the categories of Issuer and Long-term Domestic and Foreign Currency Deposits, while maintaining the Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) rating of SeABank at B1.

Moody's affirming SeABank's rating with a stable outlook reflects this organisation's expectation of the bank's high and improving capital adequacy level.

The bank has been continuing to carry out many practical and meaningful social security activities with a total budget of more than VNĐ39.2 billion such as donating 700 houses for the poor in Hà Tĩnh, Nghệ An and Điện Biên; awarding 10 lifelong high school scholarships worth more than VNĐ1 billion to poor students in Quảng Nam, Bình Phước, Nam Định, HCM City and Bắc Giang; and many other charity activities. — VNS