The market saw an immense effort by banks to present their balance sheets and debt portfolios as cleaner and safer than in past years.

Vietinbank's Chairman Pham Huy Hung said that the bank's pre-tax profit may hit VND7.7 trillion (US$365 million), which is slightly up by 2.6% against planned.

Sacombank gained a pre-tax profit of VND2.8 trillion (US$132.7 million), which Chairman Pham Huu Phu saw as a good attempt in 2013. The HCM City-based bank targets VND3 trillion (US$142.2 million) this year.

TPBank announced a 15% increase in profits last year, reaching VND362 billion (US$17.15 million).

KienLongBank saw approximately VND400 billion (US$18.95 million), which is a little lower in pre-tax profits against the target of VND493 billion (US$23.36 million), according to the bank's chairman Vo Quoc Thang, and as quoted by Tri Thuc Tre, the online newspaper.

According to the statistics of the State Bank of Vietnam, more than 50 credit institutions reported a 50% fall of profits in 2013, but the entire profit of the system rose by 3.2% against 2012.

Vietinbank's total assets were up 13% and the bad debt ratio retained less than 1% (under the standard of 3%). The bad debt ratio at TPBank was merely under 3%.

The better control of non-performing loans at many local banks was made with the debt purchases by the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC). The wholly State owned company, managed by the central bank, has bought VND38.9 trillion (US$1.85 billion) bad debts at a cost of VND32.4 trillion (US$1.54 billion) of its special bonds from 35 credit institutions as of December 31, 2013.

A State Bank of Vietnam survey shows in the first half of the year, nearly 50% of local banks showed a lower pre-tax profit against the second half of 2012.

The largest profit fall ranged from 20% to 30%. Only 30.4% of banks said that their business activities improved during the period, while 21.5% disclosed that their business results had worsened.

Up to 89.8% of the banks interviewed said that their outstanding loans had increased by late 2013, when compared to the number at the end of the previous year.