The Efficiency and Returns to Scale of the Vietnam Banking Sector: New Evidence

The objective of the present research is to examine the efficiency of the Vietnamese banking sector throughout the period spanning from 2013 to 2021. This study used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to assess the relative efficiency of a sample of 43 banks across Vietnam for the period from 2013 to 2021.The analysis produced two key findings. First, the Vietnamese banking sector demonstrated the highest levels of technical efficiency in 2020, whereas it appeared to be at its lowest level in 2014. Second, state-owned commercial banks (SOCB) exhibit the highest mean technical efficiency (TE), whereas joint stock commercial banks (JSCB) exhibit the lowest average technical efficiency (TE). In addition, the technical efficiency of state-owned commercial banks (SOCB), joint-stock commercial banks (JSCB), and wholly foreign banks (WFB) has been enhanced due to improvements in scale efficiency (SE). Conversely, the technical efficiency of joint venture banks (JVB) has improved because of enhancements in the pure technical efficiency (PTE). As for the originality, there is a notable absence of comprehensive efficiency analyses of the Vietnamese banking sector, specifically focusing on the periods before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from 2013 to 2021. In addition, we considered four types of ownership in the Vietnamese banking sector. Therefore, this study makes a valuable contribution to the finance and banking fields by comprehensively examining the performance of Vietnamese banks. This study offers valuable insights for policymakers and bank management to formulate effective strategies for a country’s financial institutions.