Vietnam’s banking leaders are delivering another year of outsized earnings, with VPBank and Techcombank becoming the first lenders to report nine-month pre-tax profit above $1 billion as credit growth, fee income and stable asset quality continue to prop up results.
VPBank, Techcombank top $1 billion profit
The two banks’ performances matter because they show the strongest institutions are still expanding profit even as the sector becomes more uneven, with state-linked banks keeping a cost-of-funds edge and private lenders facing more pressure on margins and retail loan demand. For investors, the message is that Vietnam’s banking sector remains a growth trade, but one increasingly dependent on scale, deposit franchises and non-interest income rather than broad-based loan momentum.
Sentiment Indicators
VPBank said nine-month pre-tax profit rose nearly 47% from a year earlier to almost 30 trillion dong, or about $1.1 billion, putting it at 72.4% of its full-year target. Third-quarter pre-tax profit topped 11 trillion dong, its second straight record quarter, while the parent bank alone contributed more than 25.2 trillion dong in the period, up almost 48%.
The lender’s growth was driven by lending expansion and fee income, with net interest income climbing 26.7% to nearly 53.1 trillion dong and service income jumping 76.3%. Assets rose 27.8% from the start of the year to more than 1.6 quadrillion dong, while outstanding credit increased nearly 30% to 1.1 quadrillion dong; bad debt was kept around 2%, according to the bank.
VPBank’s restructuring of GPBank also added to the story, with the acquired lender reporting nine-month pre-tax profit of more than 1 trillion dong, almost double its full-year result from 2025. That suggests the balance-sheet cleanup efforts at one of Vietnam’s weaker lenders are beginning to feed through to earnings, easing a drag on the group.
Techcombank matched the milestone with nine-month pre-tax profit of 28.9 trillion dong, up 23.7%, after posting its highest-ever quarterly profit of 10.375 trillion dong in the third quarter. Net interest income approached 32 trillion dong, service revenue rose 40% to 11.8 trillion dong and provisioning fell 30.5% to about 2.5 trillion dong, helping lift after-tax profit to more than 23 trillion dong.
Chief Executive Jens Lottner said the bank’s growth reflected diversification, with quarterly net interest income up 17.9% and service income up 44.6% from a year earlier. Techcombank also nudged its net interest margin to 3.5% from 3.4% in the prior quarter, a sign that profitability remains supported even as competition for deposits stays intense.
The bigger market takeaway is the widening divide inside Vietnam’s banking system. The Vietnam Banks Association said third-quarter operating income remained positive, but non-interest revenue outside services slowed as debt recovery and securities trading softened. It said the industry’s profits are still heavily tied to credit growth and net interest margins.
That split is favorable for banks with cheap funding and sticky current-account deposits, and tougher for smaller private lenders that rely more on retail and SME lending. VDSC said large banks had already completed 75% to 92% of their annual profit plans, while most mid-sized and smaller lenders were only at 56% to 66%, leaving them under pressure to accelerate in the fourth quarter.
MBS said the clearest gap is between state-owned lenders and private banks, with the former benefiting from lower funding costs and more floating-rate loans, while private banks face margin pressure as they raise deposits to preserve liquidity. For investors, that means the strongest Vietnamese banks remain well positioned into year-end, but stock selection matters more as earnings diverge across the sector.
| Entity | Gains | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| VPBank | ▲Record 9-month profit, stronger fee income | ▼Higher expectations for Q4 delivery |
| Techcombank | ▲Margin uplift, lower provisioning | ▼Pressure to sustain record pace |
| Smaller private banks | ▲Relative spillover from sector optimism | ▼Margin squeeze, slower target progress |
| State-linked banks | ▲Cheap funding, strong CASA | ▼Less upside if loan demand cools |
