HANOI: The Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) has dismissed rumours of being placed under special supervision by the central bank or that its chairman had been arrested.
Eximbank CEO Pham Huu Phu on Tuesday said the rumours were baseless, adding that there was no likelihood that the lender would be supervised more closely by the central bank because all of the bank’s performance indicators were positive.
Eximbank posted a pre-tax profit of VND567 billion (US$25.3 million) in the first half of this year, achieving 57 per cent of its annual target. The bank’s capital adequacy ratio is at 15 per cent, whereas the non-performing loan ratio is 2.09 per cent.
The capital adequacy ratio is an international standard that measures a bank’s risk of insolvency from excessive losses, with the minimum acceptable ratio being 8 per cent. In the early days of August, the central bank said it would announce the results of its inspection of Eximbank this month.
The central bank last Thursday also announced its inspection results for another lender, DongABank, which it then placed under special supervision. Following this news, rumours started circulating that Eximbank had also been placed under special supervision.
The SBV has inspected many commercial banks as part of a major restructuring of the banking sector. Phu said the results of the SBV’s inspection of Eximbank would soon be released.
The rumours have hit Eximbank’s stocks hard for the past few days. Shares for the HCM City Stock Exchange listed lender (EIB) dropped by more than 10 per cent this week, closing at VND12,100 per share yesterday.
