The meeting between Vietnamese and international finance-banking businesses under the “Vietnam: A rising star” business roundtable today was themed “Riding the Vietnamese bull”.

At the meeting, attendants shared the same views: the Vietnamese finance and banking market is bustling and growing strong.

Nguyen Duc Vinh, General Director of the Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) forecast that the market will continue growing in the near future. The Vietnamese economy is expected to grow at 8.5-9% per year in the next few years and the numbers are 20-30% for the finance and banking market.

Vice Chairman of the State Securities Commission (SSC) Nguyen Doan Hung said, in general, the stock market is growing rapidly and sometimes investors are too excited.

The term bull in the finance and banking sector means an investor with an optimistic market outlook who expects prices to rise and so buys now for short-term resale later. However, it also refers to a situation where investors make decisions based on others’ moves.

Currently many big companies, both State-owned and private, are holding large sums of cash, and experts predict they will set up investment funds, securities trading companies or banks.

Vietnam has 45 banks and 5-10 more will be introduced this year. According to Techcombank’s General Director, the total capital of new banks may reach $1 billion. PetroVietnam Bank plans to have around VND5 trillion of capital alone.

Worrying about the hot growth of the finance and banking market, attendants didn’t introduce measures to lead the Vietnamese financial bull.

Vietnam has around 8 million bank accounts now and this means the banking sector has a wide-range of opportunities. At present, banks are focusing on urban markets only, especially Hanoi and HCM City.

Experts say domestic banks have ambitious plans but unclear strategies.

Inflation is now very high and the State Bank has tightened its monetary policy to control inflation. “VND is increasing over USD and we can’t predict how the exchange rate will look in the future,” said Techcombank’s General Director. According to him, this will be a major problem faced by the finance and banking sector.

Lacking personnel is another significant problem, which forces banks and securities companies to solicit staff off one another.

A banker said that Vietnamese banks are focused on raising capital and lending, not designing good services to better serve customers.

Source: VNE.