Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Techcombank's third quarter 2025 financial results presentation. Today, Jens Lottner, our Chief Executive Officer, will begin with opening remarks, and Alex Macaire, our Chief Financial Officer, will share details of the financial results and business updates, followed by a Q&A session. Jens and Alex will present in English, with live Vietnamese translation available via a separate link. As per usual, there will be another call in Vietnamese tomorrow for our retail investors. Today's presentation and Q&A will last around 90 minutes, and with that, I'll turn it over to Jens to begin the presentation.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining this call. Let me start by saying that this was probably one of the strongest quarters we ever had in terms of PBT. It was actually the strongest quarter in our history. Overall, the performance across all dimensions was actually very, very strong. Our TOI overall for the nine months stands at roughly VND 38.6 trillion. On PBT, we are very much on track to achieve the target which we had set out at VND 31.5 trillion for the year. Return on assets, NIM, are still strong. 3.8% on NIM, which in the context of the current market situation still is a very strong result. Alex will actually go a little bit deeper into it, and you see from a cost-income ratio that we have actually our costs very well under control.
Probably even more importantly, if you see some of the overall numbers, if you compare them to the rest of the industry when it comes to credit growth, NPL ratios, credit costs, but also CAR, as well as CASA, all the efficiency ratios, the bank continues to perform at the top of the industry, which again is a testament to a very well-diversified business model, which now puts us actually in good standing as some markets and some niches are experiencing at least some competitive pressure. With that said, let me hand it over to Alex to go deeper into the numbers, and then later during the Q&A session, we will also provide a little bit more detail. Alex.
Thank you, Jens, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start, as usual, with a quick update about the macroeconomic and industry environment. As you know, a raft of new regulations were passed recently by Vietnam over the last few months, and they are creating a much more pro-business environment. As far as foreign markets are concerned, the deal secured with the U.S. on tariffs puts Vietnam also in an advantageous competitive position with the other economies in the region and clearly ahead of China and India. As a result, we have a number of upbeat economic indicators. GDP growth reached 8.2% for the third quarter. PMI index improved to 51.1, and exports grew at a clip of around 18% in the first nine months of 2025. Looking now at the banking sector, credit growth remains on a much faster trajectory compared to 2024.
We reached 13.4% at the end of Q3 in terms of year-to-date growth. Meanwhile, and a bit like last year, deposits are growing at a slower pace, which is obviously putting pressure on the assets-to-deposit ratio in the industry. The consequence is that banks are more reliant on the liquidity provided by the monetary authorities, with the consequence that interbank rates, as you can see, are now hovering around 4.5%, which is quite high and actually in line with the open market operations rate of the central bank. Let's have now a quick look at some recent changes to the regulations of the banking sector. The first one I would highlight is Decree 245, which aims to simplify the financial markets regulation and facilitate its access for foreign investors.
The second one is Decree 232, which aims to anchor the gold market in the banking system by entrusting credit institutions to manufacture gold and to also take care of the payment of transactions. Overall, these reforms therefore contribute to make the financial system more transparent, more comprehensive, and more efficient. It's positive, obviously, for all the players, including banks which, like Techcombank, have a strong wealth management franchise. Let's now have a quick overview of our PNL. PBT for Q3 hit a new record at VND 8.3 trillion, which, as Jens highlighted, is up 14% over the same period of last year. TOI continued to gain momentum. It was up 20% on the prior year and 12% on the prior quarter. You can see also a surge in other income in Q3, which was driven by trading activities, mainly for FX and investment securities.
We will now look into the various line items and drivers in more detail. Before we do that, I am trying to move to the next. There is a bit of a delay. I need to now go back. I do not know why. Can you change, please, the slide back to Wealth Bank? Before I do that, I would like to present the progress we are making on our wealth franchise. Go back to the wealth franchise slide, please. As you know, our wealth business includes insurance, investment distribution, securities, and asset management services, as well as affluent banking, which is basically the revenue derived from our affluent customers in general. As you can see, all the segments of our wealth bank achieved stellar growth in the third quarter compared to the same period of last year.
Assets under management increased by 57% year on year, and the number of affluent customers increased by 66%. These results have been obtained while maintaining a very low cost-income ratio of 36%, which is very strong by wealth management standards. Overall, it is an impressive performance trajectory with a lot of upside potential as well. We have a macro environment, as we saw before, which is very supportive with Vietnam's upgrade to emerging markets and also the government's effort to develop the financial sector. In our case, we have an ambitious investment plan, which includes obviously our new insurance subsidiary, as well as the possibility to reinvest recent capital issued in TCBS. Hopefully, we will see a lot more proof points of our strategy in the near future. Let's look now at our NII formation. We accelerated our disbursements this quarter.
The increase in interest earning assets reached + 16% year to date and + 21% for customer loans only. The capital mobilization from customers also grew at a strong pace of 14% year to date. We managed to do this while keeping our cost of funds flat at 3.4%. However, as noted before, there is currently a shortage of deposits in the market, and this means that customer funding could become more expensive in the near future, exerting pressure on the cost of funds. On the asset side, I think it was good to see that yields have stopped their decline and stabilized around 7%. There is still a lot of competition in the market, and therefore it is hard to see how yields could significantly increase despite the pressure that most banks are facing on their cost of funding.
Overall, our NIM is now, as you can see, hovering around the 3.8% mark, both on a quarterly basis as well as on a last 12 months basis. This level of 3.8% is a good anchor for the projections for the last quarter of the year. Looking now at lending balances in more detail. Overall, our credit books expanded by around VND 46 trillion during the quarter. The retail segment continued to grow at a faster pace than the corporate segment, 20% year to date for retail loans, which compared to 16% year to date if you add up corporate loans and corporate bonds. This focus on retail, as you know, is one of the key components of our credit diversification strategy. I would also like to touch on the chart on the right-hand side. You can see a continuous reduction in the duration of our assets.
This trend is a consequence of our product diversification strategy, particularly toward retail unsecured loans. Overall, good progress on diversification. This is another slide on the structure of our credit books. The first thing to highlight is the share of real estate assets, which continued to decrease this quarter to 58% of our corporate book, which is equivalent actually to 33% if you look at the proportion of our total credit books. We expect this ratio to reduce even further in Q4. Further diversification as well in terms of the proportion of our real estate assets. On retail exposures, mortgages are still the primary driver in line with a strong customer demand for real estate assets, and this concerns both primary as well as secondary mortgages.
However, you can see that some higher margin products are growing even faster, such as margin loans and more generally the loans in the other category on the chart. As an example, personal installment loans and household loans grew at a pace of 70% - 75% quarter on quarter in Q3. This is a very impressive expansion, which plays obviously an important role in our diversification strategy and which will also help us support our NIM. Now, a quick update on the real estate market. As you can see, we recorded a sustained volume of mortgage disbursements this quarter, confirming the recovery of the market. The new supply of condo apartments remained at a five-year high in Hanoi and also showed signs of strong recovery in Ho Chi Minh City, more than doubling quarter on quarter.
At the same time, absorption rates remained high both for Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, close to 100%. We can also observe that the prices in Hanoi have now fully caught up with Ho Chi Minh and even edging a little bit ahead of Ho Chi Minh for the primary market. This convergence between the two main cities confirms what we predicted and should support as well the continued recovery of the market in the south. Let's look now at our deposit structure in more detail. As you can see, our CASA balances, including the auto earnings component, grew by 18% year to date and 12% quarter on quarter, which is very encouraging. This is the primary driver behind the improvement of our CASA ratio to 42.5%. We are continuing to see a lot of traction from our auto earnings proposition.
We had 700,000 new customers signing up for this proposition during Q3 alone. This high component of CASA in our deposit base is what has allowed us to keep our cost of deposits flat at 3% since the beginning of the year. Let's look now at our fee income. There is a lot to unpack here. On a year-on-year basis, the progression seems modest, right? Clearly at + 1%. However, the reality is that we have had to absorb large negative one-offs in 2023. Firstly, on our card business, where we changed the revenue recognition pattern to align it with accounting requirements. Secondly, on our LC business, where we had a significant transfer of income from NFI to NII as a consequence of a regulatory change, which impacted one particular category of letters of credit called UPASS LC. The impact was large, more than VND 2 trillion.
As you can see, we managed to largely offset it in 2023 through the launch of new products which cater to the needs of our corporate customers. While cards and LC cash and settlements are showing negative variances because of the one-offs I mentioned earlier, I think it's worth highlighting the impressive progression in most of the other areas. Year-on-year growth rates, as you can see, are in excess of 30% for most fee categories. IB in particular has had a stellar performance with the distribution volumes for bonds increasing around 37% year on year. The VND 11 trillion of additional capital issued through TCBS IPO will give us the resources to grow this business even further in the future. The trajectory for Banka is also very encouraging.
We finished the quarter in the leading position, number one position in the market on APE, and our focus at the moment is on finalizing the setup of our new life insurance manufacturing company, TechCon Life, with the objective to sell the first contracts in the last quarter of this year. Overall, if you go under the skin of the numbers, then it's very clear that it's a very robust performance, which gives us a lot of momentum as we start to focus on next year. Turning now to OpEx. As you know, the second half of the year and the third, and especially the fourth quarter, are usually a bit heavy on costs for reasons which have to do with seasonality, particularly for marketing, CSR, and communication costs.
That said, and Jens highlighted that, our cost-income ratio remained under control at around 31.5% this quarter and 30% for the first nine months of the year, which is very low. Staff costs in particular were very tightly controlled with a moderate + 1% increase year on year. The areas where costs are growing faster are limited to those areas which are very closely aligned to our investment priorities, or more precisely technology and marketing. Overall, the bank is still operating at a very high level of operational efficiency with a CIR which is at the lower end of our 30% - 35% target range. Let's look now at asset quality. Our credit costs remained at around 0.6% on the last 12 months basis and 0.4% net of recoveries, which is very low among the lowest levels in the market.
Our NPL ratio improved to 1.23% and our organic NPL, so this means before the impacts from the credit bureau, went below the 1% mark. Overall, the health of our credit books is therefore very strong. It's probably, I would say, as strong as it has ever been in the last three years. I will not spend too much time on this slide. The key message is essentially the stability this quarter of our bucket two and NPL balances in line with the trend we reviewed previously. Turning now to capital and liquidity. On the capital adequacy ratio, the ratio strengthened further this quarter to 15.8%. Our consolidated equity rose to 179 trillion, thanks to the 11 trillion capital injection from TCBS IPO. On liquidity, the share of capital mobilization from customers also improved to more than 78% at the end of the third quarter.
At the same time, our short-term to medium-short-term funding to medium and long-term loans ratio continued to reduce to 24.1%. All in all, this is a very strong capital and liquidity position, fully aligned to our vision of fortress balance sheet. Finally, a glimpse into how we perform compared to our peers. Overall, I think it's fair to say that we continue to outperform the market across most metrics. This concludes the first section on our performance year to date, and we will now turn to the forward-looking guidance. The forecast for the world's GDP growth in 2025 has been slightly revised down to 2.8% for the full year. In spite of this, we maintain our anticipation of a 7.7% growth rate for Vietnam's GDP in 2025.
This estimate takes into account the strong domestic consumption, the continued and sustained level of foreign direct investment, as well as a favorable outlook on the export. Beyond that, I would say the strong credit growth in the banking system also reflects an elevation in the country's investment effort, which will mechanically support the economy via the investment multiplier. The benefits should be felt in the short term, but hopefully also in the longer term. Looking now at our guidance in more detail. First, on credit growth, we will obviously comply and use up all the quota we will receive from the central bank. Currently, our quota is for an 18.4% growth, and there is always the possibility that it is increased by the regulator before the end of the year. Our cost of funds will probably remain broadly stable at around 3.4%, therefore not very different from 2024.
CASA ratio has the potential to improve a bit on the back of the momentum from auto earning 2.0. Obviously, there is at the same time also negative pressure coming from the potential increase in TD rates. We are still 100% focused on increasing the CASA ratio. Our NIM was 4.2% in 2024. It will likely be lower in 2025. We believe, as I mentioned, around 3.8%, potentially a little bit higher, but in any case below 4% for 2025. NII growth and NFI growth should be in the low teens. CIR ratio will remain close to the level recorded in 2024, therefore between 30% and 35%. NPL ratio should be also comparable to 2024. Currently, it stands, as you know, at 1.23%. It will probably, most probably, be slightly below 1.3% for the full year. Our credit costs in 2025 should be lower.
They are going down, I think, compared to 2024. The health of our credit books is improved, as we saw earlier. In short, and I think Jens highlighted that, it was another very strong quarter for Techcombank, the highest actually on record in terms of PBT. Our results show impressive momentum across a number of areas, particularly credit activities, transaction banking, and wealth services in general. On the risk side, our balance sheet is as strong as ever, with a capital adequacy ratio of 15.8% and significant progress made on diversification and customer funding mobilization. We are therefore on the right trajectory, obviously, to achieve and hopefully exceed our PBT guidance for the year. Looking beyond toward the next five years, we are confident that we can build an even stronger and better bank on the same premises of uncompromising resilience and customer centricity. Thank you.
We will now turn to Q&A, and I will hand over to Toto.
Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Jens. Maybe before we start the Q&A session, just a few notes. Based on some feedback we received, we're making a few changes this quarter. In order to keep things moving, we're going to skip a number of questions that refer to financial guidance or requests for some detailed financial metrics that were already in the third quarter 2025 presentation that will be posted online shortly. Presentations just now or were mentioned in the AGM. We ask that you refer to those presentations that will be posted online shortly after the conclusion of today's event. The IR team will, of course, be available to answer more detailed questions as needed. With that, let us now begin the Q&A session. The first question is for Jens about the macro environment. In particular, Jens, with the Vietnam Dong weakening against major currencies such as the U.S.
dollar, the euro, and the Chinese yen, how is Techcombank positioning itself to manage potential risk on funding costs, customer FX exposures, and import-export financing, while at the same time capturing opportunities from trade shifts and capital inflows? Related to that, what is TCB's forecast for FX towards the end of 2025 and 2026, and then its impact on deposit rate and therefore the bank's cost of funds?
Okay, thank you for probably not one question, seems to be a couple of more. Let's first look into the overall macroeconomic situation. I think for a long time, it was very clear that SPV was looking for a very kind of quantitative easing, trying to provide a lot of liquidity in the market. I think the expectation was that the Fed over time would actually reduce the Fed rate. That was coming probably slower than expected. I think that started to get and created a differential in terms of interest rates between the dollar and the dong, which started to create this depreciation pressure on the dong. That probably has kind of eased off a little bit to a certain extent because at this point in time, the Fed also has cut down 25 basis points in September.
There are two more rate cuts expected, which means that if there's no further change by the central bank and by SPV, the differential actually is coming down and even swap rates would suddenly, which were negative for quite some time, and would actually have made it attractive to invest in U.S. dollars. If you now basically put this back, it's very clear that the dong becomes attractive again. Therefore, I think we probably would expect in total that maybe the depreciation for the year and dong against the U.S. dollar might be at around 3.5% mark. We've seen therefore probably most of it and the rest might actually be a little bit more stable and bearing any unforeseeable circumstances. At the same point in time, to be fair, also there was a lot of development on the U.S. dollar, right? Therefore, the U.S.
dollar actually had depreciated and there was a lot of, and there's a lot of volatility against other currencies, be it the Japanese yen and be it the euro. Also what we're seeing is that in order to diversify own exposure, some of the trade flows which used to be exclusively denominated in U.S. dollars start shifting a little bit. Other currencies, as I said, yen, euro, etc., are used. Instead of converting it into U.S. dollars, it's really traded and settled in euros, Japanese yen, and Chinese yuan. If that's the case, then I think ultimately how we're looking at it is whenever there's uncertainty to a certain extent, while it's not good for customers, I think it provides actually opportunities for the bank because we can go and advise our customers and actually helping.
That means there are more complex hedging structures and there's more advice required on the balance sheet and in what kind of currency should you actually take exposures, is there any benefit to keep positions open, etc. We can actually really come in, do more sophisticated advisory business and provide hedging instruments. At the same point in time, it's not just about the hedging, but also some more traditional instruments like letter of credits. I used again because if you don't know exactly who's on the other side and you start not using open accounts, but you actually use very traditional means of financing, of trade financing. All these areas should actually benefit the bank and we are working with our customers and clients to actually see what we can do, how we can actually help them, and in the context of that, also make additional fee income.
Now, what comes to our own positions and to a certain extent, our exposures are not very high. We had at one point in time financed in U.S. dollars when it was attractive for us, but we actually have reduced that position very much and there's not a lot of open positions out there. At the same point in time, also when it comes to FDIs, etc., we are not so much involved in the U.S. dollar business. When we look through and also our balance sheets and we look through customer exposures, which are very much exposed to exports, etc., which would in itself come with exchange exposures, it's a very small part of our book, maybe 3% - 5%. Therefore, on our own books, when it comes to the credit side, we don't have a lot of exposure.
As I said, as an advisory component, we actually see that there's an opportunity to go to customers and even new to bank customers and give them advice which they might not be getting from other banks at this point in time. Overall, I think we need to live a little bit with that volatility. Probably it's coming a little bit down. There were also questions on cost of funds. I think the cost of funds, from my perspective, are probably a little bit less related to that, but much more to what Alex Macaire was describing, that there's still actually not sufficient deposit growth, while loan growth is still very, very strong. I think some of the reason that maybe deposits have not grown so much is that people invested rightly or wrongly into other asset classes, and therefore that money is not on deposit.
Therefore, if maybe the attractiveness of the U.S. dollar is going down a little bit, maybe that can help the dong and dong deposits. I don't think we see a lot of influence from that side, at least from a foreign exchange perspective. That probably has more to do with more intrinsic attractiveness of overall asset classes and of deposits vis-à-vis real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. Therefore, on the cost of funds, probably it will be going up a little bit, but probably less so driven by the foreign exchange and volatility.
Thanks, Jens, for the detailed answer. This next one's for Alex. In Decree number 232 that talks about the removal of the state monopoly on the gold market, will Techcombank apply for the gold trading platform license, and what is our strategy there?
Yeah, thanks for this opportunity to come back to this point about the perspective for the gold market. As I mentioned, the Decree 232 was published at the beginning of October. It includes actually two main sides. The first one relates to gold manufacturing, and this is the one which is the most mature because the circular has just been published regarding the way in which the decree will be implemented for gold manufacturing. Essentially, banks which have a charter capital in excess of VND 50 trillion, which is obviously the case of Techcombank, will have the possibility to apply for a license, and the process of granting the license will typically take 45 - 60 days. Techcombank obviously has already filed the application for this license and expects to be one of the first banking participants in this market for gold manufacturing.
The second component of the decree is about gold trading, the objective being to first create an exchange for physical gold, and then in a second stage, to also create a market for gold accounts, so dematerialized form of gold. That's probably the stage and the component of the reform which is the most interesting and has the most potential for banks because this means that essentially it will broaden the universe of investment assets in a market where gold is, as you know, extremely popular. Around 70% of all Vietnamese people have invested or plan to invest in gold. It's a little bit higher proportion than real estate, given the relative affordability of gold, the possibility to buy in quantities and for prices relatively low.
In all, we are obviously extremely excited about this opportunity, but as I said, we don't have too much visibility about the creation of this gold exchange, and we are focusing on what is available now, which is the process for obtaining the license for manufacturing gold.
Thank you, Alex. As a follow-up to that, the Vietnamese government has set out an ambitious real GDP growth target of 8% - 10%, which with inflation and a credit multiplier implies the credit growth for the economy could exceed 20%. Do you see this rapid pace as creating systemic risks, and what is Techcombank's credit growth target for 2025 and the following two years?
Thank you. Yeah, another comprehensive question, which covers a number of aspects, which we know from our interviews with analysts and investors, particularly sources of concern for some of the people in the audience. The first thing to highlight is that the resilience of the banking sector has clearly improved over the last 10 years. If we compare to where it was in 2012, 2014, during the last Vietnam crisis, I think it's in a completely different shape. A number of changes and reforms were implemented by the regulator, including, for example, the transition to Basel II in 2016, which significantly increased the capital requirements for the banking system.
The fact that also recently, through the Circular 14 in 2025, the central bank also signaled the transition toward the introduction of capital buffers, so contracyclical capital buffers inspired from Basel III, and raising the minimum capital requirement from 8% - 10.5%. Meanwhile, liquidity requirements have also been significantly tightened over the last two years. All this contributes to creating a much more secure and stable and resilient banking system, as reflected also in the declining trend for cost of risk and NPL ratios in the banking system, showing that basically by increasing the capital requirements, the regulator has forced banks to be more selective in their lending activities, thereby improving the quality of the credit underwriting process. I think we are in a very different shape compared to where we were.
The country was like 10 years ago, and therefore I do not see any systemic risk for the banking system from the high credit growth in the economy. The question obviously is around the potential creation of an asset bubble, but then again, when you look at where the capital is deployed or is to be deployed in the next four or five years, this will be in creating railway links, new harbors, logistic hubs, airports, new energy power plants. All these are areas where the capacities of Vietnam are already reaching their limits, and therefore, as long as capital keeps being deployed in areas which support the growth instead of being deployed for speculation purposes or to create over-capacity, I think it's all fine.
If we look at what Vietnam is trying to achieve, it's essentially trying to put the economy on a trajectory of growth which is similar to what countries like Japan, China, or Korea enjoyed a few years ago. What does it mean now for Techcombank? Let's assume that in 2026, credit quotas are removed, and therefore we will be able to grow at a pace over which we will have full control. I don't think we will suddenly go from, let's say, 20% growth of our credit books per year to 30% or 35%. I don't think we are necessarily chasing quantity or trying to grow our books at all costs. We will always look at the capital efficiency and allocate capital where it makes sense from a return perspective.
It's likely that we would look therefore now going forward to grow in a range of 20% - 25%, so slightly higher, I would say, than the pace we had in the last five years.
Thanks, Alex. This next question is for Jens about the recent upgrade by FTSE. With FTSE's reclassification of Vietnam to emerging market and Decree 245 not allowing public companies to decide on a maximum FOL ratio lower than the ratio regulated by law, is Techcombank considering an increase in its FOL to attract more international capital?
Thank you for the question. The answer is simply no, not at this point in time. The reason we kept the FOL below the 30% was that in the case we would be inviting a strategic shareholder in, we would actually have the room to make a sizable position available for that strategic investor. As we are not ruling it out, there's also nothing on the cards, but we're also not ruling out the option. Therefore, we are not basically opening up that limit right now and going to the 30%. It's also not that we need any capital at this point in time. As Alex Macaire said, we are at 15.8% and our leverage ratio is very, very low. Should we start moving to Basel III, we might actually see a further increase depending on the exact implementation.
From that perspective, there's no intent at this point in time to go up and open it to or going all the way up to the 30%.
Thank you, Jens. This next question is for Alex. Following the recent state inspections on the corporate bond market, where several large issuers were cited for misusing bond proceeds, does this have any implication for Techcombank or TCBS? What is your view on this development?
Thanks. The short answer is no. Let me elaborate a bit more. The inspection, as you said in the question, was about the use of proceeds for bond issuances. A few entities were in the scope of this inspection. There were banks and there were corporates. The findings from the inspection were related to three main areas. The first one was around the purpose of the bond issuance and whether the issuing entity used the funds in accordance with the purpose stated in the documentation. The second was about the way in which evidence was provided that the funds were used exactly in line with the bond purpose. How good was the matching between the funds raised and the way the funds were deployed? The third finding was about disclosure.
If we take these areas one by one, first, we are completely confident that we use the funds in accordance with the documentation of the bonds. On the matching of the funding to specific assets, we prepare reports every six months and we get these reports independently audited. The conclusion of the regulator is that the reports give a true and fair view in all material respects of the utilization of the funds raised. With regard to disclosure requirements, we are also completely confident that we comply fully with the requirements of the regulations.
In short, while we recognize that these inspections are helpful because they promote transparency in the market and help hopefully investors get more comfort in the way the market operates and in the way the bonds market in particular is used, we don't think that we are in any shape or form concerned by the findings of the inspection.
Great, thanks Alex for the clear answer. Let's now turn to bank-specific questions. Alex, first on NIM, could you please provide guidance for the second half of 2025 and into 2026?
Yeah, so I can provide guidance already for the first quarter in the second half because that we published and you could see that the NIM was at 3.8% on a quarterly basis for Q3. Now when it comes to Q4, as I mentioned, we are seeing, I would say, a situation which is still a little bit challenging for banks. The cost of funding is under pressure because there is a scarcity of deposits in the market, and asset yields are not giving any signs of increasing despite the fact that the banks are feeling this pressure on that cost of funding. Therefore, we are still a little bit prudent regarding the short-term trend for our NIM. I still believe that it will be broadly at the same level as in Q3, therefore around 3.8%.
I would say our overall NIM for the year should be around the 3.8% mark, potentially a little bit higher than that. In 2026, we will most probably continue to see an increase in the cost of funding, right? In the banking system in general, because the cost of deposits might increase, we're already seeing evidence of this trend at the moment. At the same time, on the asset side, it's unclear, as I mentioned, whether the banks will start repricing and whether we will see asset yields which are a bit more rational. Therefore, I think it's fair to say that we will be faced with a situation which might still be a little bit challenging. In our case, there are a few factors which will still support an improvement of the NIM.
The first one is the fact that we are pivoting quite aggressively, as you can see, toward unsecured. This trend will continue in 2026 and will support the NIM. We are doing that because we are confident that we will be able to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns on this unsecured portfolio. That's our first driver. The second driver is our flexible pricing book, so a book of assets which are currently yielding a level of interest slightly below what we would look to charge normally. This book, as you know, is starting to run off. We will see some positive developments already in Q4 of this year and then hopefully a bit more in 2026. This will also support our NIM, which is the reason why I would say it's indeed relatively likely that the NIM would grow again above 4% in 2026.
Thanks, Alex. Jens, this next one's for you. Given our strong performance and capital base, what are Techcombank's plans regarding a more holistic dividend strategy, including both cash and share dividends?
Yeah, thank you for the question. In terms of a holistic strategy, I think we made this point when we started taking up the dividend payments after 10 years of retaining our earnings. They were basically saying we looked into it with a really long-term perspective, but ultimately it's the prerogative of the board at any point in time to basically decide, are we doing the payments, are we not doing the payments? It might be helpful to again explain a little bit what the logic is and what the board will be looking at. Even if it's ultimately to the board, how will they probably inform their decision? First and foremost, I think it's very much about self-funded growth.
As you have heard Alex Macaire saying, if the government goes onto an 8%, 10% credit or GDP growth, then ultimately you will look into a 20% average growth on the credit side, which would mean that if you want to grow over and above, you would actually need to fund a 25% credit growth. If you fund a 25% credit growth, that needs capital. I think what we're seeing is actually that some of our competitors actually start depleting their capital base because they don't have the earning momentum to actually maintain and finance that credit growth. Therefore, the first one is we basically said we want to make sure that we can actually finance this 20% - 25% growth. That would mean that your bottom line, even if you want to pay, would still need to grow in that level and/or you actually have additional capital.
From that perspective, we think actually that when we look forward, given our leverage ratio, which is very, very low, and the fact that we might be moving over to Basel III, there might actually be a different even regulatory regime, which might lead to a different way of calculating CAR, which again might actually also give us some freedom how to think about dividend payments. When we basically looked through this long-term strategy, it was very clear for us that we could afford a 20% - 25% growth trajectory on the credit side, plus maintaining a 15% CAR while still paying dividends. That was the plan, again, for the board to decide at any point in time, do they want to do these payments?
Now, if you look into the payments which were made today, we would pay VND 1,000 on every share, which ultimately comes down to around more than VND 7 trillion in equity, which we're basically distributing, and which is significantly more than what we had in the year beforehand, which is 5.6%. Are we increasing the payout ratio and all of that? We will need to see. Are we able to maintain that dividend policy? Yes, and by all means, should the board decide to do so. At the same point in time, what the board will also look into is the valuation of the bank. I think, as you've seen from TCBS and the success of the IPO of TCBS, you can actually, if you do the sum of parts, you see actually that the bank still is tremendously undervalued when it comes to price-to-book ratios.
That will be another element, and the board will clearly look at that in the interest of the shareholders. Are there certain other elements they can do in order to surface the real value creation of the bank, or if they even believe that there's not enough value given to the individual shares, are there other capital management measures we can actually take? That is constantly on the agenda. Let's be again very clear. Yes, we have a holistic plan, and in that plan, if the board should decide so, I think the current parameters would allow us to continue on the current course and trajectory. If the board decides to do so, again, there might be additional elements, but again, they're also up to the board.
What we will clearly do is we will have shareholder value in mind while not giving up the balance sheet fortress which we have built, which means we'll maintain at the 15% CAR level and going forward under whatever regime we're operating.
Thank you. Alex, on asset quality, what are the current trends in NPL formation and the credit costs, especially in the mortgage segment?
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to come back to this topic of asset quality. I summarize it by saying that the trend is favorable. I think when you look at cost of risk, when you look at NPL, you can see that we are probably now stabilized in a position of a very low level of delinquency in our credit books. If I look forward to the end of the year, as I mentioned, we do not expect any deterioration from there. We rather would anticipate that the level of risk and the level of delinquency will stay broadly flat compared to where it is now.
It's hard to imagine that it could go down further or improve further because we are already operating at a level of credit cost, a level of NPL, which is broadly in line with what we observed in the past where we were at the top of the cycles. Now when it comes to mortgage NPL in particular, you could see that at some point this year NPL for the mortgage book was around 2.3%. It is now at 2%. We are comfortable operating essentially at a level of 2%. I think trying to go down below that level would mean imposing a quite restrictive risk appetite, which would not be optimal. We should bear in mind that it's a fully secured product and we hardly ever make any loss on this product.
Even in cases where the borrower defaults, we would still be able to seize the collateral and cover our principal exposure either by selling the collateral or selling the debt altogether. Therefore, I think the current level of 2% is probably appropriate. I wouldn't say it should normalize from there. For me, it's probably the right level in the first place.
Thanks, Alex. Jens, to you. As portfolio diversification has always been a key theme, how is Techcombank progressing in reducing real estate exposure and reshaping the loan book?
Yeah, thank you again for the question. I think we're still on track to basically diversify the portfolio. There are a couple of different diversifications. One is how much is in the corporate book compared to the retail book and how much is in the corporate book and real estate compared to other sectors. We brought down, and we look sometime back, maybe the real estate exposure as part of the overall book was maybe around 37%. We should be probably this year around 33%. I think from our perspective, we believe somewhere a number between 20% - 25% is the right number, which we will go to over the next three to five years. One of the reasons is relatively straightforward.
A lot of the growth opportunities on the corporate side will not so much be in real estate, but they are in infrastructure and they are in other areas, fast-moving consumer goods, etc. Even if we don't reduce the book, we will basically have an exposure in other areas, which will reduce it as a percentage of the overall book. At the same point in time, also, there will be, given our risk appetite when it comes to real estate, which is usually prime areas and was mostly in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, we will also need to see how many of these good developments are actually coming up. Therefore, even there, we might not have so much room to grow. At the same point in time, a lot of this under normal situations will actually spin out into mortgages.
The mortgage book will continue to increase, but ultimately, a lot of the real estate developers we're working with is ultimately in order to get to the retail portfolio. Therefore, expect this number somewhere to be 20% - 25%. I would expect probably 25% as a first target and is probably the right number to think about. When it comes to the retail book to the corporate book, our retail book was 40% in 2020. It's probably now around 44% or something like that. We grew roughly a percent per annum. We will probably accelerate that over the next five years. I think we should rather look for something around 50% - 55% of the retail book in five years. Then the commensurate number on the other side and on the corporate.
We would actually shift it from a more corporate book into a more retail book, which is just again very normal given the development over the next five to ten years where we will increase GDP per capita. We will get actually more affordable housing. More people want to actually take these kind of loans up, and therefore, we will actually increase that number. I think we are on the way, and we probably would already have diversified a little bit more if we would not have gone through quite a bumpy ride on the real estate market. Again, I think in terms of the strategy, nothing has changed very much to what we said.
We really think that real estate is a very important asset class for investors, for especially affluent customers as part of our overall book, and especially when it comes to the real estate developers, we will bring that down. As I said, maybe 25% from the current 33% is a good point.
Thank you, Jens. Alex, you briefly answered this as part of the NIM question, but can you please elaborate on the flexible pricing loan book and its impact on NIM?
Yes, thank you. Total, you're right. I covered it a bit, but maybe I can still expand on what I mentioned earlier. First, let me remind everyone about the flexible pricing book. It's not a bad book. The book is current. All the assets in this book are current and are complying with the loan requirements. The main characteristic of the flexible pricing is to allow, essentially, the bank to adjust the debt servicing to the cash flows from the customer. It's a feature that is automatically embedded in the loan documentation when we deal with certain categories of project financing, particularly real estate development, when there is uncertainty around the actual completion timeline of the project. It's something which is a normal feature of the loan documentation where we are dealing with certain categories of project financing.
Currently, and because of the real estate market downturn in 2022 and 2023, some of the assets in this book are currently generating a level of yield which is below what we would normally charge. This is again something we are doing in order to support our customers and make sure that the amount of interest and the repayment of the capital is in line with their cash flows and therefore affordable from their perspective. This approach has worked very well to support the health of our credit books and has allowed us to keep our NPL ratio quite low. That said, it also has a price in terms of net interest margin, and currently we estimate that this impact is around 50 basis points.
If we were able to charge the full amount of interest on this book, then our NIM would be higher by around 50 basis points on everything else at equal. Looking forward, as I mentioned, we will already see some positive developments in terms of running off this book this quarter. Hopefully, we will be recording a bit more next year and then even more in 2027 and 2028. In, I would say, a central scenario, most of this book should have run off by the end of 2028. Does it mean that you will see immediately a big increase in our NIM by 50 basis points? Probably not, because this increase first will be gradual, as I mentioned. It will follow the run-off path of the overall book.
Beyond that, the book itself gets diluted because at a proportion of our total assets, it reduces over time as we continue to expand our balance sheet. Broadly speaking, I think 50 basis points is a good ballpark figure, and it also explains why, as we start working on our next five-year plan, we are confident that we will be able to expand our net interest margin, hopefully even by more than the 50 basis points I mentioned earlier.
Thanks, Alex. Next one on LDR. Techcombank's LDR has remained above 100% for quite some time. Alex, are there plans to bring this in line with international standards?
Yeah, no, thank you, because it's a question that we indeed hear sometimes from investors and analysts. First, I would like to clarify that even at its current level, the AD ratio of Techcombank compares well with the rest of the industry. It's around the same level as the rest of the industry. It means that it's probably a feature of this market to have a relatively high AD ratio. Jens touched on it. I mentioned also the fact that deposits are going.
less rapidly than assets, which is slightly counterintuitive because when we disburse a loan to a borrower, you would expect this money to be somewhere, right? Either in the account of the borrower or reinvested or used to pay a transaction. In any case, you would expect that to translate into an increase in the deposit of one economic actor in Vietnam. The fact that deposits are not going as fast as credit has several reasons, probably, and Jens touched on some of them. Maybe some of the money is kept in bank notes and therefore kept outside of the banking system. Some of the money also gets invested outside of Vietnam in US dollars or in crypto. The last factor is also the fact that the government hasn't disbursed at the same pace. Essentially, the revenue has grown very fast, like double digit, but the disbursements have not followed.
Therefore, it's essentially acting as a bit of a negative fiscal expansion policy, which is also contributing to reduce probably the progression of the deposit base. That's essentially for the general explanation about the banking system and the relatively high level of the AD ratio. Another factor I'd like to highlight is the level of capital that Techcombank maintains. Obviously, we have a 15.8% capital adequacy ratio, but we also have a very low leverage ratio. Our leverage ratio is now around 6.3. It's almost half of Singaporean banks, right? Maybe Singaporean banks have a lower AD ratio, but they also have a leverage ratio which is more than two times as high as the one from Techcombank. Therefore, if you include capital in the source of stable funding, same as deposits, then actually this, if you want, adjusted AD ratio in the case of Techcombank is very low, right?
Around 80%, 85%, which is the lowest level in the banking system and is also quite low in terms of international standards. Sorry for this relatively long explanation, but the short conclusion is that I don't think we have a problem with the AD ratio. I think the current level of the AD ratio is also appropriate in the context of Vietnam and in the context of our very low level of leverage.
Thanks, Alex. Turning to our broader financial services ecosystem, Jens, we've seen a strong rebound in bancassurance. What do you think are the key drivers, and how is TC Life progressing?
Good question. Overall, indeed, as Alex has said, this year, or this quarter, actually, we were number one when it comes to bancassurance and AP. Ultimately, if we recall a little bit on history, we separated with Manulife somewhere in the third quarter in 2024. We worked on an exclusive basis with partners like AIA and FWD. Of course, that takes a little bit of teething problems usually and finding together, making sure that the products are really understood, that we are advising in the right way. That takes a little bit of time. Right now, what you're seeing is this has actually been fully established. Therefore, we're getting really back to the kind of rhythm we always had, which is based on our customer profile, but also in the way we are selling integrated wealth solutions, of which insurance, especially life insurance, is a very, very important piece.
Also, based on the training, customer-centric, and need-based advice, our customers actually believe us that we are not just pushing insurance because we get a good margin, but because we believe actually it's the right product for these customers. Therefore, right now, I think it's really more going back to where we used to be. I think what you will see is the moment we start shifting over to TCB Life, which is then our own insurance company, you will probably see that this might continue even more so. Even if probably some of the numbers you might see might get a little bit distorted because of the new regulation which is coming in, which is capping the amount of commissions you can actually get. Again, I think we will see how that really works itself out. On TCB Life, as Alex said, we're actually ready to go.
We will start in pilot mode, start selling the first policies this quarter, and then we'll be ready to scale up really by the beginning of next year. We should really start being able to create really integrated experiences. We think the way insurance and products should actually be created and how value is created for customers and how we are advising the customers on these products. Again, we're working pretty hard on it. It should be coming in, as I said, really beginning of next year. Of course, the impact we expect on both sides, on TCB side, but as well as on TCB Life, should be very accretive.
We have said beforehand that we really believe that the value creation for the bank or for the group in life insurance is probably even higher than what we've seen on the brokerage side, on the security side, just because of the need of these products in the market. Therefore, even if we start looking through cash contribution or profit contribution is one thing, but when we look into the value creation, value of new business written, et cetera, we really hope to show relatively quickly significant improvements and progress, which then will also reflect itself in terms of valuation and the value we're creating for our shareholders.
Thank you, Jens. A question on operational efficiency for you. Does Techcombank have any workforce reduction plans in the near future, given our large investments into digital transformation and technology such as AI? Jens, this one's for you.
No. To make it very simple, if you look over the last four or five years, we basically increased our customers by two and a half times while keeping our overall staff size constant. A lot of this, what we're having right now, is actually going into productivity. We believe, and also what we're seeing right now, is that humans will still be necessary for quite some time. I think we can help with AI. We can make people more productive. As long as you grow at the clip of 20% or 30% and you add millions of customers every year, I think it would be foolish to really cut down people. What will happen is we will continue to restructure, meaning we will try to find people in certain areas like data, digital, and all of that. You might take them out of other areas of the bank.
We will do and invest a lot in reskilling and upgrading skills and all of that. At this point in time, there's not a single moment that we really think about kind of forced retrenchment or something like that. This is clearly still a complete growth story. We will need people. We need more people, different people. At this point in time, that's not even in our consideration.
Thanks, Jens. With the government sandbox for digital assets, what are Techcombank and TCBS's plans for TCEX? Will we participate? What is the expected level of investment?
I think from where we stand right now, we clearly want to participate. However, it also needs to be clear that some of the regulation needs to be more concrete, needs to be more detailed. When it comes to the pure technical capabilities, creating an exchange, et cetera, we actually technically are already relatively advanced. From a pure technology perspective and getting it up and running, we can activate that very, very quickly. We're still waiting for the government and some parts interacting and working with the government to be more specific. How will that really look like? What assets are actually allowed? What security protocols? What is it? Is it VND? Is it a kind of stable coin? There are still a lot of questions which still need to be debated between SBV, Ministry of Finance, and also SSC, all the regulatory authorities. We are in that process.
Whenever we hear something which is giving us some comfort, we will start putting that into our plans. It's very clear that if this becomes real and if it's very clear how the licensing requirements are and what's required, we will probably be one of the first banks to provide this offering through either TCBS or a suitable subsidiary, which will be set up. Again, as I said, we are following that process very closely. We think it's a great opportunity. If everything works out as planned on the regulatory side, again, we are ready to participate.
Thanks, Jens. That was a good transition for TCBS. A few questions regarding TCBS. Let's maybe start with you, Jens. Post IPO, how will the economic sharing between TCB and TCBS evolve?
It will evolve exactly as it is right now. When we set up the company and with all our companies, we're basically trying to find as much as possible market comparisons and market mechanisms in order to share the profits between entities. We're not trying to shift something to the left or to the right. We're basically saying, if I'm distributing a fund which you have created at TCBS, how much would you need to pay in another environment? Or if we create an abundance, right? This has been, let's say, generated by the bank, but the technical expertise and the trading happens on TCBS, that should follow market logics. This framework now, which was always there, we will make it even more explicit, which I think is exactly the right thing to do, as there's now a significant interest of other shareholders. They need to understand that.
There are a couple of services which the bank has provided, like HR services, audit services, etc., which we might not have charged to that extent. There might be chargeback mechanisms. Again, I think that is immaterial in the larger scheme of things. We will have this kind of framework and follow exactly the same principles. From that perspective, I would not expect any major impact or changes to the current growth trajectory, comes with Thalles Paixao, PBT, or whatever, and then what you're currently seeing.
Thanks, Jens. Lastly, Alex, could you share TCBS's nine-month 2025 business results and key growth drivers?
Yeah, certainly. I will probably be quick because the results of TCBS were already disclosed, published, and commented on. It was a record-breaking pre-tax profit of VND 2 trillion in the third quarter, which is almost double year on year. If you look at the first nine months of the year, then TCBS achieved around 90% of their full-year target already. A number of drivers contributed to this stellar performance. Margin lending was the major driver. TCBS has been very successful in building out this margin lending business by being very aggressive on transaction fees, which are essentially an incentive for investors to move their assets to TCBS and then use TCBS to leverage their portfolio. They've also implemented some very competitive pricing policies. All this helped the NII from margin lending to increase by 44% year on year and 20% quarter on quarter.
Investment banking is another strong source of revenue for TCBS. It recorded net income of VND 500 billion in the third quarter. One important source of income was the bond issuance, which in the first nine months of the year reached nearly VND 54 trillion, representing a market share of 42%. The last source of revenue is investment and bond distribution. In this segment, TCBS generated around VND 1.2 trillion in the third quarter, which is up 28% quarter on quarter and 86% year on year. A lot of that is driven obviously by distribution of corporate bonds, including distribution to customers of Techcombank. TCBS has been very successful as well in building their own online bond marketplace, which is the iConnect bond platform.
The volume of transactions on this platform keeps increasing, showing both year on year as well as impressive potential in the coming years for all the reasons which were discussed through the Q&A today, including the TCEX exchange, including the expansion of the universe of investable assets to gold products and so on. I think there are plenty of reasons to be bullish about this business and therefore about Techcombank in general, Techcombank Wealth activities in general. Thank you.
Thank you to Jens Lottner, Alex Macaire, and the broader management team for the insightful updates, and to all analysts and investors for your thoughtful questions. This concludes our 2025 third quarter financial results presentation. As a reminder, the presentation and replay link will be posted on the investor relations section of the website soon. Please feel free to contact the IR team for any additional questions. We look forward to continuing our dialogue and delivering sustainable value to our stakeholders. Have a great day. Thank you.