HANOI: Many large Vietnamese banks are implementing plans to issue shares to pay dividends before the end of the year.

The move is aimed at increasing charter capital, improving financial strength, meeting the State Bank of Vietnam’s (SBV) capital safety regulations and expanding operating scales.

BIDV Bank plans to issue more than 642 million shares to pay dividends, which will increase the bank’s charter capital from nearly 50.59 trillion dong to more than 57 trillion dong.

BIDV recently finalised the dividend entitlement at a rate of 12.69%. Thus, the bank’s shareholders, each with 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 48.056 trillion dong to 53.7 trillion dong.

The dividend ratio is 11.74%, meaning shareholders owning 1,000 shares at the closing date (today) will receive 117 new shares.

Vietcombank also officially increased its charter capital to 55.89 trillion dong after paying stock dividends at a rate of 18.1%.

Agribank, in the middle of this year, was granted approval by the National Assembly to supplement charter capital for the 2021 to 2030 period with a maximum of 17.1 trillion dong, of which 6.75 trillion dong will be added in 2023 and a maximum of nearly 10.35 trillion dong in 2024 from the state budget.

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

This month, VPBank, for the first time in the last decade, finalised the list of shareholders to pay cash dividends at a rate of 10%.

With more than 7.9 billion shares in circulation, VPBank spent more than 7.9 trillion dong on dividends.

VPBank was one of the few banks that distributed a portion of dividends in cash this year.

 - ANN