Top 3 leave the rest far behind

According to the fourth quarter 2024 financial reports of 27 listed banks, up to 16 banks recorded positive CASA growth.

Of which, the 5 banks with the strongest breakthrough in CASA in 2024 are: SeABank with CASA ratio as of December 31, 2024 reaching 19.2%, up 8 percentage points compared to the beginning of the year; NCB increased by 3.4 percentage points, CASA reached 9.7%; OCB increased by 2.5 percentage points, CASA reached 14.7%; Vietcombank increased by 1.9 percentage points, CASA reached 35.8%; and VietinBank increased by 1.8 percentage points, CASA reached 24.2%.

In contrast, 11 banks recorded a decrease in CASA over the past year. Despite the decrease in CASA, MB, BIDV, MSB, and Sacombank were still in the Top 10 banks leading in this ratio over the past year.

In more detail, the 10 banks with the highest CASA ratio are: Techcombank (40.9%); MB (39.1%); Vietcombank (35.8%); MSB (26%); VietinBank (24.2%); ACB (23%); TPBank (22.2%); BIDV (19.7%); SeABank (19.2%); and Sacombank (18.1%).

In recent years, Techcombank has emerged as a phenomenon in terms of CASA balance. Before 2020, the Top 3 banks leading the market in terms of CASA were usually 3 familiar faces Vietcombank, MB, and Techcombank with a CASA ratio of around 30%.

However, by 2020, Techcombank had surpassed its two direct competitors, with a CASA ratio of up to 46.1% (far surpassing MB in second place with 39% and Vietcombank at 30%).

Since then, CASA deposit balance has always been a highlight for Techcombank to "show off" every time it announces business results. The peak was a record 50.5% in 2021 when the bank took advantage of Covid-19 to promote cashless payments.

According to Mr. Jens Lottner, General Director of Techcombank, data-driven solutions such as automatic profit generation, loyalty program (Techcombank Rewards), along with many new features for retailers (merchant) have contributed to boosting demand deposit balances to increase by 27% in 2024, with a record of nearly VND 231 trillion, raising the CASA ratio to 40.9% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024.

In addition to the above solutions, according to SHS Research, becoming a sponsor for the famous concert "Anh trai vu ngan cong gai" in 2024 has also attracted more GenZ customers, thereby contributing to increasing CASA deposit balance for Techcombank, helping this bank reduce capital costs and strengthen its competitive advantage.

Excluding the balance of deposits through automatic interest-bearing accounts, Techcombank's CASA ratio is 37.4%, behind MB (39.1%) and above Vietcombank (35.8%).

This shows that Techcombank, MB and Vietcombank are still competing very closely in terms of CASA. Apart from these 3 “big guys”, no bank has ever achieved a CASA ratio of over 30%.

To attract CASA, some banks such as Techcombank, LPBank, and VIB have been implementing the “automatic profit” feature. The feature will create a combination of flexible payment capabilities and optimal profits on customers’ idle money, helping to optimize idle cash flow and increase income for customers.

For example, at LPBank, the balance in a customer's payment account automatically generates interest with a yield of up to 4.3%/year. This figure is more than 40 times higher than the interest rate of regular payment accounts on the market.

However, the automatic profit feature has only been deployed by LPBank since the end of November 2024, so it has not yet been clearly reflected in CASA in 2024.

LPBank's CASA by the end of 2024 is 9.8%, up 0.1 percentage point compared to the beginning of the year.

Competition on CASA

CASA (demand deposits) plays an important role in the operations of banks, being a stable and cheap source of capital for banks to provide credit products to customers. CASA is also a tool to assess liquidity, ensuring stability and reliability in bank operations.

Compared to term deposits, CASA often has much lower interest rates, ranging from 0.1% to 0.5% per year depending on the bank. Therefore, banks are always racing to expand the number of personal customer accounts to take advantage of this cheap source of capital.

Looking at the CASA index of current listed banks, the group of banks with the lowest CASA ratio includes Bac A Bank, Viet A Bank, VietBank, Nam A Bank, KienlongBank. 4/5 of these banks reduced their CASA ratio last year.

There is no specific regulation on CASA ratio for banks. Although a high CASA ratio is considered good for a bank, this level of “goodness” can vary between banks, depending on the size and specific business model of each bank.

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SeABank is the bank with the highest CASA growth rate in the system. Photo: Hoang Ha.

The competition for CASA among banks is becoming fierce. In this game, banks are forced to invest heavily in technology and digital transformation to take the lead.

ACB is a bank that shows great ambition in this race. The total mobilization scale of the bank in 2024 including customer deposits and valuable papers reached 639 trillion VND, an increase of 19.4% compared to 2023. The CASA ratio improved from 22.9% in 2023 to 23.3% in 2024.

Investing heavily in digital transformation in the 2019-2024 period, ACB has developed ACB ONE Digital Bank into an important business channel parallel to traditional banking.

Thanks to that, ACB has expanded its mobilization channels and attracted new customers, increasing its market share. ACB also achieved compound growth with the number of online transactions increasing by 98% and the value of online transactions increasing by 75% during this period.

Similarly, in the context of low growth in mobilization of the entire banking system, at VIB, customer deposits still maintained outstanding growth, more than 17% compared to the beginning of the year, raising the bank's customer deposit balance to VND 276,000 billion.

Of which, individual customer deposits reached nearly VND200,000 billion, up 14%. In particular, low-cost capital sources (CASA and foreign currencies) increased by more than 35% compared to the beginning of the year, contributing to the strategy of optimizing capital costs, helping VIB's 2024 interest expenses decrease by 14% compared to the same period.

CASA RATIO AT BANKS AS OF 31/12/2024 (%)
STT BANK 12/31/2024 12/31/2023
1 TECHCOMBANK 40.9% 40%
2 MB 39.1% 39.6%
3 VIETCOMBANK 35.8% 33.9%
4 MSB 26% 26.3%
5 VIETINBANK 24.2% 22.4%
6 ACB 23.3% 22.9%
7 TPBANK 22.2% 21.9%
8 BIDV 19.7% 20%
9 SEABANK 19.2% 11.2%
10 SACOMBANK 18.1% 18.4%
11 OCB 14.7% 12.2%
12 EXIMBANK 14.7% 16.1%
13 PGBANK 14.6% 17.2%
14 VIB 14.1% 13.3%
15 VPBANK 14.1% 17.4%
16 ABBANK 12.6% 11.6%
17 HDBANK 11.9% 11.1%
18 LPBANK 9.8% 9.7%
19 NCB 9.7% 6.3%
20 SAIGONBANK 7.9% 7.3%
21 SHB 7.8% 10.1%
22 BVBANK 6.7% 5.8%
23 KIENLONGBANK 6.4% 6%
24 NAM A BANK 6.3% 7.1%
25 VIETBANK 4.9% 8.3%
26 VIET A BANK 4.1% 5%
27 BAC A BANK 3% 4%