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BIDV chairman "was not arrested"
The rumour about Tran Bac Ha, chairman of the Bank for Investment Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), being arrested over economic violations was groundless and untrue.
The announcement was made by the Ministry of Public Security on its website.
The ministry’s General Department of Security has set up an investigation team to trace the source of the rumour and identify the culprits behind the fabricated information, said major general Nguyen Hung Linh, director of the Department of Financial Security, on the website chinhphu.vn.
According to the department, the misinformation had a negative impact on financial markets, including stock market trade, as well as damaging BIDV’s prestige.
“The culprits launched the rumour not only to seek profit but also with the aim of destroying the banking and financial markets,” he said.
Viet Nam’s stock market on Thursday witnessed the hardest fall since August last year when a number of bank tycoons were arrested over financial wrongdoings. Ending Thursday, the VN-Index on the HCM City exchange lost 3.66 per cent while the HNX-Index on the Ha Noi bourse lost 5.3 per cent.
About US$1.6 billion worth of market capitalisation evaporated on the two markets as more than 60 per cent of codes lost value. However, shares worth VND2.78 trillion ($133 million) were also traded on the day.
Although BIDV has yet to list on the stock exchange, rumours about its chairman’s arrest have again raised new concerns about the banking sector, particularly after the market declined strongly after the arrests of senior banking officers last year.
BIDV’s chairman Tran Bac Ha late on Thursday refuted the rumour, saying the false information may be the product of some market speculators hoping to make a quick profit.
“Someone said to me today that speculators could earn hundreds of billions of dong thanks to this rumour,” Ha was quoted as saying on the VnExpress.vn website.
BIDV reported the case to the Ministry of Public Security and other relevant agencies.
The State Securities Commission yesterday also asked the two stock exchanges and Viet Nam Securities Depository to examine all transactions in recent times, especially trading on Thursday, and co-ordinate with other agencies to deal with speculative rumours and behaviour.
Though the stock market recovered during yesterday’s session, financial markets are still tense and volatile following the rumour.
In addition, groundless information of a 6-per-cent hike in petrol prices and devaluation of the dong from 2-3 per cent in this quarter also made investors uneasy.
vietnamnews
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