​VietinBank Securities expects surge in profits

The company secured a $30-million loan from a consortium of four Taiwanese banks in March and another $60 million from Korea’s Woori Bank and Taiwan’s Fubon Bank and Cathay United Bank a month later.

It is its highest profit target since 2017, with CEO Tran Phuc Vinh explaining that the low deposit interest rates which are diverting funds into the stock market and the increasing number of new investors are the factors for the optimism.

The loans provide it with funds for margin financing and investing in corporate bonds and certificates of deposit, Vinh said.

It reported a 20 percent rise in revenues to VND610 billion last year and an 8 percent increase in pre-tax profits to VND151 billion.

Vietnam's benchmark VN-Index has risen 10.5 percent from the end of last year to 1,219.75 points Tuesday. Brokerage FPT Securities forecast that VN-Index could hit 1,351-1,400 points this year.

The stock market saw nearly 258,000 new trading accounts opened in the first quarter, accounting for 65 percent of the figure recorded in 2020 as a whole, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).

This took the total number of accounts to nearly 3.02 million as of last month, equivalent to 2.8 percent of Vietnam's population.