Banks cut CIR to improve operation costs

Good timing: Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (left) at a bilateral meeting with Japan on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima. It coincides with news of the country’s banking sector coming off a strong performance in the first quarter. — AFP

HANOI: Many banks have cut their cost-to-income ratio (CIR) thanks to digital transformation to optimise operations, which greatly contributed to their positive results in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q23).

And this was despite a challenging market.