Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of concentration and efficiency in the Vietnamese banking system using the structural model.Design/methodology/approach: The authors apply the concentration ratio (CR), Herfindahl‐Hirschman Index (HHI) and concentration‐profitability model based upon the Structure‐Conduct‐Performance (SCP) and Efficiency Hypothesis (EH) approaches to examine 48 Vietnamese commercial banks over the period 1999‐2009.Findings: The authors' empirical results show that the Vietnamese banking industry has become substantially less concentrated; however, large commercial banks still dominate the whole banking system. Further, their results do not support either the traditional Structure‐Conduct‐Performance or the Efficiency Hypothesis.Practical implications: The State Bank of Vietnam needs to have policies for restructuring the system and promoting competition in the banking sector of Vietnam.Originality/value: This is the first such study of the Vietnamese banking system.

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the market structure of Vietnam’s banking sector during 1999-2009, which is after the introduction of the two-tier banking system, using the non-structural (Panzar–Rosse) model. Design/methodology/approach: The authors consider a more comprehensive range of specifications, in terms of a greater number of environmental covariates and different dependent variables, than in the previous applications of this model. Further, this is the first study that uses lagged input prices (to avoid endogeneity), excludes assets (to avoid specification bias) and includes a lagged dependent variable (to avoid dynamic panel bias) in such a study of the Vietnamese banking system. Findings: The authors find that the Vietnamese banking system operates in monopoly. Originality/value: The main contribution of this paper is to determine the market structure in the recent period after the Vietnamese banking system was transformed into a less centralised, two-tier system. This study is the first to uniquely identify the market structure of this developing economy’s banking system (using data only for Vietnam and not observations from other countries) in a post-transition period.

The purpose of this paper is to examine risk management of the Vietnamese banking system. This is the first such study of the Vietnamese banking system. To be able to carry out a comparative analysis and provide policy recommendations for risk management, we carry out an original survey of Vietnamese commercial banks using a questionnaire. 42% of the interviewees are General/Deputy General Directors and 58% are Heads/Deputies of a risk management department. The Kruskal-Wallis, Pearson chi-square and other tests are employed to examine the relationship between risk management and bank efficiency. The survey results indicate that there is a difference between banks in terms of risk area identification, risk intensification methods prioritized, risk monitoring methods, efficiency improvement suggestions, awareness of other banks’ risk management systems and credit risk analysis.