Viet Nam Prosperity Bank (VPBank) is among Viet Nam’s 50 best-performing companies and 50 best listed firms in 2017.

The rankings were announced at an award ceremony hosted by Nhip cau Dau tu (Investment Bridge) Magazine last week in HCM City.

With impressive business results and financial indices, VPBank took the top position in the banking sector and 16th position in the list. Meanwhile, Forbes Viet Nam also listed VPBank in the top five banks and in 26th position in the top 50 listed companies.

This year’s rankings were based on the business performance of enterprises from 2015 to 2017, with 70 per cent divided equally between compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and return on equity (ROE), and the remaining 30 per cent decided by the market through returns to investor.

VPBank has been listed as the bank with the highest ROA and ROE in the sector since 2016. In the first quarter of the year, its ROA and ROE stood at 3.3 per cent and 34.2 per cent, respectively, up from 2.5 per cent and 27.5 per cent in the same period last year.

VPBank has enhanced its retail banking products with the aim of becoming one of largest retail banks in Viet Nam.

The Viet Nam Bank Association last month announced the list of credit institutions with the highest number of new issued cards and highest spending revenue in the market.

VPBank topped the list, accounting for 19 per cent of the total number of credit cards issued in the market in 2017. New credit cards issued by VPBank in the first quarter of 2018 made up 27.6 per cent of the total number of Master and Visa cards in the country. The bank also took the lead in card spending revenue in 2017 with a 17 per cent market share.

VPBank was listed in the top four banks with highest after-tax profit in 2017 with VND8.1 trillion.

In the first three months of the year, its before-tax profit reached VNĐ2.6 trillion, posting a 36 per cent year-on-year rise. This has also been the highest first quarter profit for the bank so far.

The bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) in the first quarter of 2018 reached 15.2 per cent, which was much higher than the 9 per cent level stipulated by the State Bank of Viet Nam and up 35 per cent from the same period last year.

Global credit rating firm Moody’s Investors Services has upgraded VPBank’s baseline credit assessment from B3 to B2, and its counterparty risk assessment from B2 to B1.

In addition, Moody’s kept VPBank’s rating on long-term foreign-currency deposits unchanged at B2, while raising its outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘positive’.

The counterparty risk assessment evaluates the risk of a partner engaging with that bank.VPBank is one of the top five commercial joint stock banks in terms of lending and mobilising deposits.

The Nhip cau Dau tu Magazine’s Top 50 includes surveys and rankings of listed companies which have been evaluated based on international standards with the counsel of many economists and business experts of international and domestic institutions for seven consecutive years. — VNS