Philip Crouch, Head of Personal Banking of ANZ Vietnam, said that Vietnam has a lot of great potentials. To date, only 10% of the population is using banking services, mainly in big cities like Hanoi and HCM City, which means that there exist big opportunities for foreign financial groups.

Kelvin Lee, Managing Director of Vina Securities, agrees with the view, adding that currently, only 0.5% of Vietnamese people have bank accounts while the volume of transactions via bank accounts remain modest.

Philip Crouch from ANZ said that competition between banks will become fiercer in the time to come, but ANZ has been doing all it can to get a bigger piece of the pie. 

He added that in Vietnam, there are still a lot of investment opportunities, especially investments in banks which have just emerged in the last two years.

Tomaso Andreatta, Chief Representative of Italy’s Intesa SanPaolo Bank, which has just opened a representative office in Vietnam, said that the bank still does not have a plan to set up a bank entity in Vietnam, but Intesa SanPaolo will focus on wholesale banking services and services for small- and medium-size enterprises.

Mr Tomaso said that foreign banks that have been present in Vietnam for many years and have a lot of experience in doing business in Vietnam may not do much for the remainder of the year. Meanwhile, new banks prove to be very enthusiastic when joining Vietnam’s market. They plan to provide capital for highly feasible projects, big businesses, Vietnamese banks and foreign enterprises which are doing business in Vietnam.

Peter Born, Vice President of German Commerzbank (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia offices) believes that not many banks will aim at setting up bank entities in Vietnam because this would require a lot of capital and human resources while the market has become competitive. He said Commerzbank will focus on its strength: wholesale banking.

Regarding the establishment of foreign bank entities in Vietnam, Andrian Cundy, Head of Research under VinaSecurities, said that not many banks will choose this way to penetrate Vietnam’s market in the immediate time.

Instead of this, foreign bankers will try to purchase stocks of local banks. He said that banks from China, South Korea and Japan are going this way.

In 2007, when Vietnam’s economy obtained a high economic growth rate, bankers hoped that they would be able to disburse money for a lot of projects. However, the global economic recession has made this plan unfeasible.

However, Tomaso Andreatta said that the recession, which is considered a bitter pill, also can be useful. This has taught investors to keep calm and choose good projects to invest in. He still believes that wholesale banks will be able to find more feasible projects to pour money into.