In the afternoon of June 15, 2020, at Melia Hotel, Hanoi, Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) successfully held the 28th General Meeting of Shareholders with the participation of shareholders representing 1,334,054,273 shares, accounting for 76% of the total share capital with the right to attend the meeting. The General Meeting of Shareholders agreed to approve all important contents including the goal of being in the Top 3 largest private joint stock banks in Vietnam, strongly transforming towards digital technology, promoting the customer ecosystem and the value chain in which SHB is having strength, etc.

Representative of the Bank, Mr. Nguyen Van Le – General Director of SHB reported to shareholders on the business results of 2019.

In 2019, SHB continued the success with total assets of VND 365 trillion, up 13%; mobilized capital from market 1 reached VND 289 trillion, up 18.5%; outstanding loans reached VND 266 trillion, up 15%; profit before tax reached VND 3,026 billion, an increase of nearly 45% compared to 2018.

In 2019, SHB made a provision of VND 4,232 billion for VAMC special bonds and made pre-settlement of the entire VND 5,773 billion of special VAMC bonds which were extended by the State Bank until 2024. As a result, SHB was qualified for dividend payment and completed the dividend payment of 2017 and 2018 for shareholders.

Photo: Mr. Nguyen Van Le – General Director of SHB reported the business results of 2019 and the operation plan for 2020.

In 2019, SHB actively wrote off/recovered in cash VND 2,708 billion of non-performing loans (excluding recovering debts sold to VAMC). The ratio of non-performing loans/total outstanding loans decreased to 1.9%.

SHB has also completed its goal of increasing its charter capital to VND 17,558 billion from the issuance of more than 550 million shares, including dividend payment and stock issuance to the public. Thereby, SHB has ensured compliance with capital adequacy ratios as prescribed in Circular 41/2017/TT-NHNN and basically completed all the pillars of Basel II. Besides, SHB strictly controlled operating expenses, bringing the ratio of operating expenses to total net operating income to 39.66%, the lowest in the last 5 years.

At the meeting, shareholders voted to approve the plan of the Board of Directors of SHB to increase the charter capital to VND 19,314 billion in 2020, equivalent to an increase of VND 1,756 billion from the stock dividend distribution in 2019 with the ratio 10%. The increase of charter capital aims to improve the financial capacity to expand the scale of lending, to invest in information technology, to hire the world’s leading technology corporations to consult, thereby being ready for digital transformation journey and becoming a modern universal retail bank with modern financial products and services meeting the 4.0 standard.

Photo: Shareholders were interested and asked questions about: plan to increase charter capital, technology investment, divestment plan at SHB Finance Company, etc.

In addition, the shareholders agreed on the plan to change the listing of SHB shares from the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE). SHB shares have been listed and traded on HNX since 2007. Since then, SHB shares have always been in the group of stocks with high market capitalization and liquidity, with transparent information and positive influence on market movements. The change of stock exchange listing is considered as a strategic and proactive step to implement the Prime Minister’s policy on restructuring Vietnam’s stock market while promoting SHB’s image to foreign strategic investors and reputable large economic organizations, enhancing SHB’s position in the stock market.

The shareholders also approved SHB’s divestment plan at SHB Finance Company to major foreign strategic investors. The divestment at SHB FC to foreign strategic partners will bring shareholders and the bank significant capital surplus, and enhance SHB’s reputation and image in the domestic and foreign financial and monetary markets. Foreign strategic investors will also become a bridge for SHB to expand other banking activities to international market. With the participation of foreign investors, SHBFC will improve its management capacity with the direct participation of foreign partners experienced in developed markets; will have access to and get advice on applying modern information technology system from partners; making a difference in business model, products and services that have been successfully deployed in developed markets; having access to and deploying advanced risk management, debt recovery technologies, etc.

2020 is the year that SHB will transform strongly in terms of strategy, business model, organizational structure, risk management, bank modernization. SHB Board of Directors has worked with the world’s leading strategic consultants and established three strategic project committees directly directed by the Chairman of the Board to build a strategy for sustainable development and differentiated long-term vision, a strategy for bank modernization towards digital banking and a strategy for restructuring governance and management. The strategic goal of SHB by 2025 is to become one of the three largest modern private retail commercial joint stock banks in Vietnam and a leading bank in the digital banking transformation with financial ratios approaching international standards including Basel III and standards of reputable rating organizations.

Photo: Representatives answered issues of shareholders’interest frankly and openly

At the same time, SHB focuses on fully exploiting the potential of its distinct strengths from the large scale of existing corporate customers available and the ecosystem of large corporate customers which are small and medium-sized enterprises, individual customers, etc. with chain products on the basis of new technology.

In response to the call of the Government, the State Bank and with the spirit of always accompanying and sharing with customers affected by the Covid 19 epidemic, SHB has actively implemented a credit package of VND 25,000 billion with many incentives in terms of lending interest rates, banking service fees, especially reducing lending interest rates by at least 2%/year compared with the normal interest rates for both existing and new customers with difficulties caused by the epidemic. SHB continues to effectively implement measures to expand credit in production, business and priority areas, especially lending to maintain and restore the industries affected by the epidemic;

In addition to the preferential interest rate packages, SHB continues to implement debt restructuring, debt rescheduling and maintenance of debt groups as well as interest and fee exemptions for customers facing difficulties due to the epidemic in line with the Circular 01/2020/TT-NHNN to support customers comprehensively; exempts the most part of customer transaction fees in accordance with the direction the State Bank, implements activities to support the connection of input and output markets in the business community at SHB and reputable domestic and foreign organizations to help businesses reduce their dependence on markets affected by the epidemic and quickly restore production and business activities; provides information about domestic and international markets and preferential and support policies from the State for businesses; advice freely on corporate finance and corporate restructuring to overcome difficulties;

SHB has drastically reviewed all operating expenses and implemented measures to reduce operating costs with a minimum reduction of 10%. At the same time, the leaders of the Board of Directors, the Board of Management and the senior managers of the bank voluntarily reduced their salaries by 50% until the announcement of the end of the epidemic. Managers of the whole system from the deputy department manager level (and equivalent titles) reduced their salaries by 10% – 30% depending on their income level.

Photo: The shareholders voted and approved the Resolution of the 28th Annual General Meeting of SHB with very high consensus.

Based on the results achieved at the end of 2019 and the development goal in 2020, SHB expected profit growth of 35-40% in 2020. However, the Covid 19 pandemic outbreak since the beginning of 2020 has greatly affected the economic growth of both the world and Vietnam, in which the banking industry is also significantly affected and SHB has actively adjusted business plans to suit the actual situation and the adjusted business plan was approved by the General Meeting of Shareholders as follows:

The 28th General Meeting of Shareholders has ended successfully. The shareholders attending the meeting approved all the contents with the approval rate of 99%. Representative of SHB, Chairman of the Board, Mr. Do Quang Hien, committed: SHB will try its best to successfully fulfill the goals set by the General Meeting of Shareholders, affirming its position and prestige domestically and internationally, for the benefit of shareholders as well as for SHB brand in the financial and monetary market.