Resource for Research: A Vietnamese Banking Database

Thanh Ngo
Massey University, New Zealand

Tu Le
University of Canberra, Australia

This version: June 2017

PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION

Abstract
This paper introduces a free and new database that provides financial analysts and researchers
a comprehensive assessment of the performance of the Vietnamese banking system. This
database provides statistics on the activity and efficiency of 432 bank-year observations for
Vietnamese banks during the 2002-2015 period. This is the first systematic compilation of data
on the split of state vs. private ownership, list vs. non-listed banks and foreign vs. domestic
banks. Consequently, this arrives at a unique set of variables and indicators that allows
capturing the development and performance of the Vietnamese banking sector over time along
many different dimensions.

Keywords: database, Vietnam, bank, efficiency, performance.


Email: [email protected]

Email: [email protected]

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1. Introduction
Since the entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2007, Vietnam has boasted one
of the fastest-growing emerging economies in the world, with an average of approximately 6%
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth per year in real terms (ADB, 2016). Because of its
relatively underdeveloped capital markets,1 the Vietnamese banking system acts as a backbone
of the economy and contributes 16% to 18% toward annual GDP (Stewart, Matousek, &
Nguyen, 2016). Consequently, the efficiency and performance of the Vietnamese banking
system has recently been the main interest of many analysts and researchers. However, it is
difficult for researchers, especially foreign scholars to conduct the study in the Vietnamese
banking system due to its data limitation.2
The frontier analysis approach, including Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)3 and
Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA),4 has been popularly used to examine the efficiency and
performance in the banking sector (see, for example, Berger & Humphrey, 1997; Liu, Lu, Lu,
& Lin, 2013). The idea of frontier analysis can be traced back to the possible production frontier
in which banks will be compared with a benchmark (i.e. the ‘best-practice’ frontier), either an
output isoquant or an input isocost: a bank is efficient if it operates on the frontier and
inefficient otherwise. In this sense, efficiency is defined as a comparison between outputs and
inputs (Farrell, 1957), in which a bank is efficient if it can maximize outputs while using no
more than the observed amount of any input (output-oriented), or if it can minimize inputs
while producing at least the given output levels (input-oriented). Consequently, it is important
to define the inputs and outputs of the banks to evaluate their efficiency and performance and
thus, a database for Vietnamese banks is needed.
Along with commercial databases provided by Bankscope or the Banker association,5
this paper introduces a free and new database that provides financial analysts and researchers
a comprehensive assessment of the performance of the Vietnamese banking system. This
database provides statistics on the activity and efficiency of 432 bank-year observations for
Vietnamese banks during the 2002-2015 period. The database will thus enable financial

1
Securitisation activity is practically non-existent. Also the stock market has been only serving limited number
of companies which are favoured by the government.
2
A recent search on Scopus with the key words of ‘Vietnam AND bank AND efficiency’ resulted in only ten
articles, all of them were published after 2010 and mostly relied on commercial databases from Bankscope, Fitch-
IBCA, and Bloomberg. It is noted that it was not a requirement for Vietnamese banks to publish their reports until
July 2009 (Vietnamese Government, 2009), therefore individual banks’ data prior to 2009 is limited.
3
DEA was first introduced by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1978).
4
SFA was introduced simultaneously by Meeusen and van den Broeck (1977) and Aigner, Lovell, and Schmidt
(1977).
5
The Banker database only provides financial information on large banks and a few listed banks.

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analysts and researchers to compare the performance between banks for a given year and over
time.
This new database draws on a wider array of sources and constructs indicators of the
activity and efficiency of a much broader set of banking institutions, trying to cover all banks
that have been operating in the system. Specifically, this is the first systematic compilation of
data on the split of state vs. private ownership, list vs. non-listed banks and foreign vs. domestic
banks. Consequently, this arrives at a unique set of indicators that allows capturing the
development and structure of the Vietnamese banking sector over time along many different
dimensions.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents and discusses
the indicators of the activity and performance of the banks. Section 3 presents the sources as
well as the data sample. Section 4 offers concluding remarks.
2. Variables and indicators included in the database
At the first sight, the number of variables and indicators for the performance of Vietnamese
banks is countless. We, however, will focus more on common indicators that represent the
efficiency of a bank in using their inputs to produce outputs, in line with the banking efficiency
literature.6 In addition, we also collect information on some macro-economic variables.
In the banking efficiency literature, there are two main approaches to choose the input
and output factors of a bank, the production and the intermediation approaches (Sealey &
Lindley, 1977). The production approach sees the banks as financial institutions who primarily
produce services for account holders. Consequently, inputs include physical factors such as
capital, labour, loan applications, credit reports, checks or other payment instruments while the
number and type of transactions, documents processed over a given time, and number of
deposit or loan accounts are referred to as outputs (Berger & Humphrey, 1997). Except for
variables in Vietnamese dongs (VND), the only available physical variables of Vietnamese
banks are the Number of Employees (input) and the Number of Branches (output).7 The
corresponding indicators are Labour productivity and Capital productivity, measured by total
revenues (incomes) over the number of employees and total revenues over the number of
branches, respectively (Naceur & Goaied, 2001; Athanasoglou, Brissimis, & Delis, 2008).
Additionally, the indicators for the relative size between a certain bank and the whole banking

6
For more details on this issue, the readers are encouraged to see the surveys of Berger and Humphrey (1997) or
Paradi and Zhu (2013), among others.
7
We argue that the number of branches is highly correlated with the number of accounts that a bank can provide
to its customers.

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system in a certain year are also calculated, namely the Employees Ratio (computed as the
bank’s number of employees over the total employees of all banks in the same year across the
sample) and the Branches Ratio (computed as the bank’s number of branches over the total
number of branches of all banks in the same year across the sample). It is noted that our
database covers from a low of eight banks in 2002 to a high of 43 banks in 2009-2010, of which
the four State-owned commercial banks (SOCBs) are always included, and can be a good
representative for the whole Vietnamese banking system.8 In this sense, the total employees of
all the banks included in this database can represent the total employees of the whole banking
sector; similar for the total number of branches.
In contrast, the intermediation approach sees banks as intermediaries to transfer funds
between savers and investors. Specifically, banks collect deposits and purchase funds to
intermediate them into loans and other assets. In this sense, the bank’s assets can be treated as
outputs while its liabilities can be treated as inputs.9 Common variables, according to the
banking efficiency literature, include Total Deposits and Total Shareholder’s Equity on the
input side and Total loans, Total Fixed Assets, Other Earning Assets as well as Total Assets on
the output side (Sealey & Lindley, 1977; Clark, 1988; Berger & Mester, 1997). Similar to the
production approach, we also calculate the indicators for the Total Deposits Ratio (computed
as the bank’s total deposits over the total deposits of all banks in the same year across the
sample), the Total Loans Ratio (computed as the bank’s total loans over the total loans of all
banks in the same year across the sample), and the Total Assets Ratio (computed as the bank’s
total assets over the total assets of all banks in the same year across the sample). 10
Avkiran (2011) and Avkiran and Cai (2014) proposed the Core Profit Model (CPM)
which based on the intermediation approach but specifically focuses on the costs (inputs) and
revenues/profits (outputs). They argued that a bank is not different from other firms in the sense
that it too aims for profit maximisation. Therefore, a bank will need to minimize its Interest
Expenses and Non-interest Expenses (inputs) and maximize its Interest Incomes, Non-interest

8
For example, in the 2003-2010 period, the average deposits and credit share of only twelve banks in our database
were already accounted for 96.3% and 65.1% of total domestic deposits and credit (Ngo, 2015).
9
Berger and Humphrey (1997, p. 197) also pointed out that the intermediation approach is somewhat better for
evaluating the efficiency of entire financial institutions while the production approach is more appropriate for
evaluating at branch level.
10
Note that these indicators can also be used to measure the sensitivity to market risk of the CAMELS rating
system later on.

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Incomes as well as Total Income (outputs).11,12 Additionally, one can also use the Personnel
Expenses (payments on labour), Occupancy Expenses (payments on fixed assets), and Total
Operating Expenses (payments on labour, fixed assets and other operating activities) as inputs
to capture the cost of the banks. Following Ngo and Tripe (2016), we also calculate the Core
Cost (equals to the sum of interest expenses, personnel expenses and occupancy expenses) and
Total Cost (equals to the sum of interest expenses, personnel expenses and other non-interest
expenses) for each individual banks.13 Consequently, the indicators of the Core Cost Ratio
(computed as the bank’s core cost over the total core costs of all banks in the same year across
the sample) and the Total Cost Ratio (computed as the bank’s total cost over the total costs of
all banks in the same year across the sample) are also calculated.
Another approach, which is more popular to the banks’ managers, evaluates the
efficiency and performance of banks based on their soundness. The CAMELS rating system
rates individual banks according to their financial condition in six aspects: Capital adequacy,
Asset quality, Management quality, Earnings ability, Liquidity, and Sensitivity to market risks.
It is believed that the CAMELS rating system is “an effective internal supervisory tool for
evaluating the soundness of financial institutions on a uniform basis and for identifying those
institutions requiring special attention or concern” (FDIC, 1997, p. 752). Alongside with the
Total Assets Ratio calculated above, we computed another eleven indicators to represent the
six categories of the CAMELS rating system based on their popularity in the literature,
including the Equity Over Total Assets, Equity Over Total Deposits, Non-performing Loans
Ratio (over total loans), Loan Loss Provisions Ratio (over total loans), Return Over Assets,
Returns Over Equity, Net Interest Margin, Cost-Income Ratio, Liquid Assets Over Total Assets,
Liquid Assets Over Total Deposits and Cumulative Gaps Over Total Assets.14
Recent banking studies also analyse the role of Off-balance sheet (OBS) activities
(Lozano-Vivas & Pasiouras, 2010, 2014) since the exclusion of OBS may lead to biases in the

11
These variables were also used by Miller and Noulas (1996), Bhattacharyya, Lovell, and Sahay (1997),
Leightner and Lovell (1998) and Sturm and Williams (2004), among others.
12
It is noted that those variables and indicators can be mixed in a broader view of the intermediation approach: a
bank is a ‘black box’ that converts inputs into outputs (Berger & Mester, 1997).
13
Ngo and Tripe (2016) pointed out that results from banking efficiency analyses are sensitive to the choice of
the expenses/costs.
14
Liquid Assets are in fact Other Earning Assets introduced in the Intermediation Approach above; while the
Cumulative Gaps is calculated as the gap between sensitive assets (include due from other banks and total loans)
and sensitive liabilities (include due to other banks and other liabilities).

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assessment of banks’ performance. Consequently, we provide additional information on OBS
values as well as the banks’ profits (before and after taxes) in the database.15
3. Data sources and the sample
Along the four-phases development (Ngo, 2015) in the 1990-2016 period, the Vietnamese
banking system has been rapidly expanding from only nine banks in 1991 to more than 90
banks in 2015 (see Table 1).
The availability of data on those banks varies significantly, with data of minor or
unlisted banks limited and uncompleted.16 To construct our database, we manually collect data
from annual reports and financial reports, as well as relevant documents published on the
individual banks’ websites (see the database for the list of banks as well as their website
addresses).17 Consequently, our database ended up covering a total of 44 Vietnamese banks
operated in the 2002-2015 period (see Table 2), equivalent to 432 bank-year observations
(Table 3) and a maximum of 431 variable-based observations (Table 4).
4. Concluding remarks
This article introduced a new and free database on the Vietnamese banking sector, covering a
set of variables and indicators that can be used in efficiency and performance evaluation of the
banks under the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), data envelopment analysis (DEA), as well
as ratio analysis (the CAMELS rating system). It is an on-going project so we are looking to
update the database on a yearly basis. Any comments, suggestions or providing data that was
not covered in the database are welcome.

15
Note that the value of Profits Before Tax and the difference between Total Income and Total Cost are not the
same, due to the fact that banks often have to adjust for some provisions before tax.
16
Data for branches of foreign banks was also limited due to their reporting system: they do not have independent
reports but these are incorporated into the parent company’ reports. Also, the data for FBs are converted into VND
based on the USD/VND exchange rates extracted from the Asian Development Bank
17
In the Vietnamese banking system, two accounting standards exist in parallel, the International Financial
Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS). However, as the VAS had started
to adopt IFRS since 2001, differences in value between the two approaches are minor and not considered
important. Our database therefore relied on information from IFRS reports, if available, but we will also use
information from VAS reports occasionally.

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Table 1: The numbers of Vietnamese banks over time

Bank types 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015

SOCBs 4 4 5 5 5 5 7
JSCBs 4 48 48 37 37 37 28
JVBs 1 4 4 4 5 4 3
FOCBs 0 18 26 29 33 55 55
Total 9 74 83 75 80 101 93
Notes: - Not including Policy Banks and the Cooperative Bank.
- Abbreviations: State-Owned Commercial Bank (SOCB); Joint-Stock Commercial
Bank (JSCB); Joint-Venture Bank (JVB); Foreign-Owned Commercial Bank, included
100% foreign-owned banks (FOCB).
Source: SBV (2017)

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Table 2: List of Vietnamese Banks covered in the database
Type of
No. Bank Code Notes
ownership
1 An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank ABB JSCB
2 Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank ACB JSCB
Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural
3 AGB SOCB
Development
Joint Stock Commercial Bank for
4 Investment and Development of BIDV SOCB
Vietnam
5 Bao Viet Joint Stock Commercial Bank BVB JSCB
Construction Bank (former name: Was acquired by the
6 CB JSCB
Trustbank) SBV on Feb.2015
Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank
7 CTG SOCB
of Industry and Trade
8 DongA Joint Stock Commercial Bank DAB JSCB
Vietnam Export Import Commercial
9 EIB JSCB
Joint Stock Bank
Was merged into SCB in
10 First Joint Stock Commercial Bank FCB JSCB
2011
Great Asia Commercial Joint Stock Was merged into HDB in
11 GAB JSCB
Bank 2013
Global Petro Commercial Joint Stock Was acquired by the
12 GPB JSCB
Bank SBV on Jul.2015
Hanoi Building Commercial Joint Stock Was merged into SHB in
13 HBB JSCB
Bank 2012
Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint
14 HDB JSCB
Stock Commercial Bank
15 HSBC Bank (Vietnam) Limited HSBC FOCB
16 Indovina Bank Ltd. IVB JSCB
17 Kienlong Commercial Joint Stock Bank KLB JSCB
Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial
18 LVB JSCB
Bank
19 Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank MB JSCB
Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint
20 MSB JSCB
Stock Bank
Mekong Development Joint Stock
21 MDB JSCB
Commercial Bank
Was merged into BIDV in
22 Mekong Housing Bank MHB JSCB
2015
23 Nam A Commercial Joint Stock Bank NAB JSCB
24 National Citizen Bank NCB JSCB
Ocean Commercial One Member Was acquired by the
25 OB JSCB
Limited Liability Bank SBV on Apr.2015
26 Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank OCB JSCB
Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Was merged into CTG in
27 PGB JSCB
Stock Bank 2015
Was merged into STB in
28 Southern Commercial Joint Stock Bank PNB JSCB
2015
Vietnam Public Joint Stock Commercial
29 PVB JSCB
Bank
30 Saigon Commercial Bank SCB JSCB
South East Asia Joint Stock
31 SEAB JSCB
Commercial Bank

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32 Saigon Bank for Industry & Trade SGB JSCB
Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Joint
33 SHB JSCB
Stock Bank
Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint
34 STB JSCB
Stock Bank
Viet Nam Technological and
35 TCB JSCB
Commercial Joint Stock Bank
VietNam Tin Nghia Commercial Joint Was merged into SCB in
36 TNB JSCB
Stock Bank 2011
TienPhong Commercial Joint Stock
37 TPB JSCB
Bank
38 Viet A Joint Stock Commercial Bank VAB JSCB
39 Vietnam Bank for Social Policies VBSP PB
Joint Stock Commercial Bank for
40 VCB SOCB
Foreign Trade of Vietnam
Viet Capital Commercial Joint Stock
41 VCPB JSCB
Bank
Vietnam International Commercial Joint
42 VIB JSCB
Stock Bank
Vietnam Commercial Joint Stock Bank
43 VPB JSCB
for Private Enterprise
Was merged/changed
44 Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank WEB JSCB
into PVB in 2013
Source: State Bank of Vietnam (www.sbv.gov.vn)

Notes:
1. The banks' codes are authors' defined.
2. Abbreviations: State-Owned Commercial Bank (SOCB), Joint-Stock Commercial Bank
(JSCB), Policy Bank (PB), Foreign-Owned Commercial Bank (FOCB).

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Table 3: Data availability

Code 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Obs.

ABB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
ACB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
AGB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
BIDV x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
BVB x x x x 4
CB x x x x 4
CTG x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
DAB x x x x x x x x 8
EIB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
FCB x x x 3
GAB x x x x x x 6
GPB x x 2
HBB x x x x x x x x x 9
HDB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
HSBC x x x x x x x 7
IVB x x x x x x x x x x 10
KLB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
LVB x x x x x x x x 8
MB x x x x x x x x x x x x x 13
MSB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
MDB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
MHB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
NAB x x x x x x x x x 9
NCB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
OB x x x x x x x x 8
OCB x x x x x x x x x x 10
PGB x x x x x x x x x 9
PNB x x x x x x x x x 9
PVB x x x 3
SCB x x x x x x x x 8
SEAB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
SGB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
SHB x x x x x x x x x x 10
STB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
TCB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
TNB x x x x 4
TPB x x x x x x x x 8
VAB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
VBSP x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
VCB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
VCPB x x x x x x x x x x x x 12
VIB x x x x x x x x x x x 11
VPB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14
WEB x x x x x x x x x 9
Obs. 8 12 19 26 30 35 40 43 43 39 37 36 34 30 432

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Table 4: Coverage of the variables

Variable Code Number of observations

Commonly used in the Production Approach

Number of Employees NE 329
Number of Branches NB 301
Labour productivity LPROD 329
Capital productivity CPROD 301
Employees Ratio ERATIO 329
Branches Ratio BRATIO 301

Commonly used in the Intermediation Approach

Total Deposits DEPOSITS 430
Total Shareholder's Equity EQUITY 430
Total Loans LOANS 430
Total Fixed Assets FASSETS 430
Other Earning Assets EASSETS 430
Total Assets TASSETS 431
Total Deposits Ratio DEPORATIO 430
Total Loans Ratio LOANRATIO 430
Total Assets Ratio ASSETRATIO 431

Commonly used in the Core Profit Model (CPM) Approach

Interest Expenses and Similar IE 425
Non-Interest Expenses NIE 428
Personnel Expenses PE 306
Occupancy Expenses OE 302
Other Expenses OTE 419
Total operating expenses TOE 426
Core Cost CC 422
Total Cost TC 428
Core Cost Ratio CCRATIO 422
Total Cost Ratio TCRATIO 428
Interest Incomes and Similar II 425
Non-Interest Income NI 410
Total Income TI 419
Total Income Ratio TIRATIO 419

Commonly used in the Ratio (CAMELS) Approach

Equity Over Total Assets ETA 429
Equity Over Total Deposits ETD 429

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 Non-performing Loans Ratio NPLRATIO 422
Loan Loss Provisions Ratio LLPRATIO 414
Returns Over Assets ROA 421
Returns Over Equity ROE 421
Net Interest Margin NIM 421
Cost-Income Ratios CIR 428
Liquid Assets Over Total Assets LTA 430
Liquid Assets Over Total Deposits LTD 430
Cummulative Gaps Over Total Assets GTA 338

Additional Information
Off-balance Sheet Activities OBS 406
Profits Before Tax PBT 422
Profits After Tax PAT 421

The Database: The database (Excel 2013 format) can be downloaded using the following link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s1w6vufz2k2h8f8/VN_banks_database_Sep_2017.xlsx?dl=0

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