The Vietnamese banking system has demonstrated a number of shortcomingsin the five years since the nation joined the World Trade Organisation,according to participants at a forum hosted by the Foreign TradeUniversity in Ha Noi last week.

Inadequate technology and poorcorporate governance, especially for financial management, were the twomajor disadvantages of domestic commercial banks, said the unviersity'sassociate dean, Nguyen Thi Quy, noting the rising proportion of badbebts in recent years.

At the end of last year, the average ratioof bad debt among commercial banks was around 2.5 percent, she said,but this had lately risen to 2.8 percent among commercial banks withshares listed on the nation's stock exchanges.

Trinh Quang Anh,director of Maritime Bank's Economics Research Centre, voiced concernover the capital adequacy ratios (CARs) of banks currently, saying thatCARs computed in accordance with International Financial ReportingStandards and those calculated under the Vietnamese accounting standardsvaried significantly.

Former Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyensaid that challenges in the financial services sectors were foreseenwhen the country joined the WTO. The existing challenges to the bankingsystem did not result from national commitments to the WTO, he said.Rather, taking part in the organisation had helped Viet Nam recogniseweaknesses and presented a good opportunity.

Several domestic banks, including Maritime Bank, have tried to take advantage of that opportunity.

MaritimeBank had invested to improve and renew its business strategy, inaddition to comprehensively reinventing its image. It had hired a globalmanagement consulting firm – McKinsey and Company Inc – to build thebank's business strategy since 2009, Anh said.

Last year, thebank was ranked fifth among Vietnamese commercial banks, with areturn-on-equity (ROE) the highest among banks with earnings of at least1 trillion VND (47.84 million USD)./.