Taking position in $439 million of pretax profit - race of Tecombank and VPBank

This year, Techcombank was the first bank to hold a shareholders' meeting. In 2017, this bank reported a record profit of $353 million in pretax profit, double the amount of the previous year.

In 2018, Techcombank targets to earn over $439 million, marking the first time in history that a joint-stock commercial bank has such a high profit plan.

Techcombank is not the only bank setting this ambitious goal. VPBank had a very successful business year when its profit before tax increased by 65 per cent to $357 million, the highest among Vietnamese joint stock commercial banks.

VPBank continues to set a target for profit growth of 33 per cent, equivalent to $447 million in profit this year. Maintaining a high growth rate after a leap is VPBank's ambitious plan.

From a target of earning roughly $439 million (VND10.000 billion) in pretax profit of Techcombank and VPBank, it can be seen that these banks have closely followed the state-owned commercial banks such as Vietcombank which made profit of $484 million in 2017, BIDV ($386 million) and Vietinbank ($404 million).

In the bottom group, many banks also broke their own profit record. HDBank's profit before tax doubled, reaching $106 million, MBB's increased 44 per cent ($235 million), VIB's grew twice ($61.7 million). In 2018, HDBank or VIB continue to target profit growth of 50 to 100 per cent.

In fact, investors have forecasted a surge of profit of the banking group after positive information at the end of last year such as stable macroeconomic, high GDP growth, low inflation and soaring foreign exchange reserves. In addition, bad debt has been fully provisioned by banks.

Those factors are expected to be maintained this year. General Statistics Office recently announced that GDP of Vietnam in the first quarter increased by 7.38 per cent, the highest level in ten years. Those figures show the rising confidence of people in the economy.