BANKS INCREASE CAPITAL THROUGH PAYING DIVIDENDS IN SHARES

Many large banks are implementing plans to issue shares to pay dividends in the last months of this year.

The move is aimed to increase charter capital, improve financial strength, meet the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s capital safety regulations and expand operating scale.

Accordingly, BIDV plans to issue more than 642 million shares to pay dividends, which will increase the bank’s charter capital from nearly VNĐ50.59 trillion to more than VNĐ57 trillion.

BIDV has recently finalised the dividend entitlement date on November 29 this year, at a rate of 12.69 per cent. Thus, the bank’s shareholders, who hold each 100 BID shares, will receive 12.69 new shares.

Besides BIDV, VietinBank plans to issue more than 564 million shares to pay dividends to increase its charter capital from nearly VNĐ48.056 trillion to VNĐ53.7 trillion.

VietinBank has also closed the ex-rights trading date on November 30 this year. The dividend ratio is 11.7415 per cent, meaning shareholders owning 1,000 shares at the closing date will receive 117 new shares.

Earlier, Vietcombank also officially increased its charter capital to VNĐ55.89 trillion, after paying stock dividends at the rate of 18.1 per cent.

Agribank in the middle of this year was also approved by the National Assembly to supplement charter capital for the 2021-30 period with a maximum of VNĐ17.1 trillion, of which VNĐ6.75 trillion will be added in 2023 and a maximum of nearly VNĐ10.35 trillion will be in 2024 from the State budget.

Not only large State-owned banks, many other private banks have also locked in the right to receive dividends and bonus shares, such as OCB with a dividend ratio of 50 per cent in shares; HDBank with a rate of 15 per cent in shares; and SHB with a ratio of 18 per cent in shares.

Notably, in this November, VPBank for the first time in the past decade finalised the list of shareholders to pay cash dividends at a rate of 10 per cent. With more than 7.9 billion shares in circulation, VPBank spent more than VNĐ7.9 trillion to pay dividends. VPBank was one of the few banks that distributed a portion of dividends in cash this year.

SBV’s statistics showed 28 banks have expected to increase their charter capital by more than VNĐ163 trillion in 2023, higher than last year’s number of VNĐ154 trillion. It is estimated that more than four billion bank shares are issued this year to pay dividends to investors.

According to international credit rating organisation Fitch Ratings, Việt Nam's rapid credit growth in recent years has posed a big challenge for banks in ensuring capital safety. Fitch Ratings believes that the Vietnamese banking system needs additional capital of up to US$10.7 billion, equal to 2.9 per cent of GDP, to ensure risk provisions and maintain the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) at 10 per cent.

Source: VNS