Transactions at SHB. The bank has continued to improve governance capacity, reform and renew human resource development as well as risk management to ensure credit growth and quality. — Photo courtesy of the bank

HÀ NỘI — SHB is fully converging favourable factors for breakthrough growth thanks to its abundant financial health, determination to innovate comprehensively and aspiration to be a leader.

In 2020, SHB closed the Habubank merger, a successful M&A deal in the banking and finance industry with impressive business results. This is considered as an "explosion" signalling the future of breakthrough growth for the bank ahead.

The bank has continued to improve governance capacity, reform and renew human resource development as well as risk management to ensure credit growth and quality, towards Basel III and IFRS 9 international standards.

In the first nine months of the year, SHB's consolidated before-tax profit reached VNĐ5.05 trillion (US$241.2 million), up 93.9 per cent over the same period in 2020. With this result, after many consecutive quarters of improvement, its return on asset (ROA) was 1.5 per cent and return on equity (ROE) reached 25.6 per cent, equivalent to the leading performance index in the banking industry.

These results were because SHB has improved cost efficiency on the basis of digitisation and good governance. In the nine-month period, the bank's cost-to-income ratio (CIR) was below 30 per cent, the optimal level in the system, and a sharp decrease compared to the same period last year. This result reflected its effectiveness in optimising operations with the value of digital transformation and human resource quality to improve productivity and reduce investment costs according to the traditional banking model.

As of September 30, 2021, SHB's total assets reached VNĐ464 trillion, an increase of 12.5 per cent compared to the beginning of the year, exceeding the plan set by the annual general meeting of shareholders 2021 for the whole year. The bank's own capital reached more than VNĐ43.3 trillion. Its current charter capital is expected to increase from the current VNĐ19.2 trillion to VNĐ26.6 trillion this year according to the plan approved by the State Bank of Việt Nam. In which, SHB will pay 2020 dividend at the rate of 10.5 per cent in shares and offer shares to existing shareholders with the ratio of 100:28 at the offering price of VNĐ12,500 per share.

In August, SHB signed a divestment agreement at SHB Finance to Krungsri (Thailand), a strategic member of Japanese MUFG Group. This deal is expected to bring in about VNĐ3.6 trillion to SHB, according to information from Krungsri.

The bank has also strongly implemented the building of a digital corporate culture, automating processes, investing in IT systems and researching and applying a variety of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data and Cloud Computing.

Bright prospects

Recently, SHB continued to bring new inspiration when transferring shares to HOSE. The move to HOSE at this time is completely in line with the bank’s strategic direction. SHB's strong reputation and financial capacity and HOSE's advantages will bring synergy and open up new prospects for SHB shares, especially to increase the selection of large foreign strategic investors with a common vision and long-term strategy, leading the bank to breakthrough sustainable growth, constantly bringing benefits to shareholders, customers and partners.

Moving to the new listing floor, SHB has more conditions to absorb new motivations to spread inspiration to the market and investors.

Many securities companies have predicted that SHB stock will be included in the VNM ETF basket in the first quarter of 2022 because the bank's market capitalisation has increased sharply. It is in the group of 85 per cent leading market capitalisation. This signals that SHB will become the next representative to officially mark itself in the VN30 (the authorised index representing the most economic power in Việt Nam). It shows that in the near future, SHB will receive a new source of capital from the structure of ETFs using the VN30 index as a reference including DCVFM VN30, SSIAM VN30 and Mirae Asset VN30. SHB would not only be affirmed in the Top 10 banks with the largest capitalisation but also represent the stature of the Vietnamese market, which is appreciated by major financial institutions around the world.

Looking back at our friends in the region, like Qatar and the UAE, since MSCI announced plans to upgrade these two markets to the emerging group. The stock indices of these countries increased sharply by 50-150 per cent and the liquidity increased 2-3 times the following year. This can also be repeated according to the estimates of securities companies, in the event that Việt Nam is officially upgraded to an emerging market by the end of 2022, the stock market will attract cash flows of up to $1.4 billion came from tracking funds or benchmarking the FTSE Global All-Cap, FTSE All-Word and FTSE Emerging Markets indices. That is, the stocks that represent the most indices, VN30 for example, although the proportion is modest, the amount of foreign capital poured in is very large.

The prospects are a testament to the high determination of the bank's Board of Directors to raise SHB's position and constantly increasing benefits for shareholders, customers and partners.

With bold steps in recent years, SHB and SHB shares continue to be promising in the financial and banking market in the last quarter of the year as well as the next period. Investors will surely not miss the interesting things from this bank.