Vietnam's market status upgrade: VPS Securities JSC’s ideal timing

Vietnam’s stock market status upgrade can be seen as “ideal timing” for VPS Securities JSC, setting the stage for a success of its upcoming IPO. In the longer term, a stronger market will also be a powerful growth driver for the company.

Affirming No.1 position

In the early hours of Wednesday, October 8 (Vietnam time), FTSE Russell officially upgraded Vietnam’s stock market status from “frontier” to “secondary emerging", effective from September 21, 2026.

This long-awaited announcement marks a major milestone, recognizing Vietnam’s recent significant progress and signaling its deeper integration into the global financial system.

The upgrade is expected to energize Vietnam’s stock market toward more robust and sustainable growth. Among the sectors likely to benefit the most is securities, as market liquidity is expected to rise sharply, intensifying competition among leading brokerage firms.

According to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), VPS Securities continued to dominate the brokerage market in Q3/2025, accounting for 17.05% of total trading in stocks, fund certificates, and covered warrants - up 1.68 percentage points from the previous quarter and well ahead of the runner-up, SSI Securities, which held 11.82%.

This commanding market share has contributed significantly to VPS’s performance amid positive market conditions in Q3/2025.

The company’s pre-tax profit was estimated at VND1,400 billion ($53.12 million), up 70.1% year-on-year, with a net profit margin of 24.2%. For the first nine months of the year, pre-tax profit reached VND3,192 billion ($121 million), surpassing the full-year 2024 result by 1.2%.

With this momentum, VPS’s board of directors has raised its 2025 business targets: net revenue up 3.5% to VND8,800 billion ($333.87 million), and pre- and post-tax profits up 25% to VND4,375 billion and VND3,500 billion ($132.79 million), respectively.

Over the past five years, VPS has remained Vietnam’s top brokerage across all three exchanges - HoSE, HNX, and UPCoM. In the derivatives market, the company commands nearly 50% market share, far ahead of competitors. It currently manages over 1.6 million trading accounts, or 15% of the country's total.

Its success stems from a retail-focused strategy, strong technology investment, and a policy of not involving proprietary trading.

In its next growth phase - branded as “The Next Chapter: Sustainable and Flexible Growth” - VPS aims to consolidate its top position through product diversification, enhanced technology capabilities, wider market coverage, and an expanded partner network.

A historic IPO and VPS’s "ideal timing"

To realize these ambitions, VPS is executing one of the largest IPO and capital-raising deals in Vietnam’s securities industry.

The company plans to increase its charter capital from VND5,700 billion to VND16,441 billion ($623.77 million) through the issuance of 710 million bonus shares, 161.8 million private placement shares, and 202.3 million IPO shares.

According to industry sources, this IPO will make VPS one of the most valuable securities companies in Vietnam by market capitalization, while also generating a substantial share premium to bolster its equity base.

Against this backdrop, the market status upgrade by FTSE Russell is considered “ideal timing” for VPS, enhancing investor confidence and ensuring strong demand for its IPO. Looking ahead, the overall expansion of Vietnam’s capital markets will continue to fuel VPS’s growth trajectory.

Euromonitor projects that Vietnam’s stock market trading value will grow at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 37% during 2024-2029, compared with 29% during 2020-2024. By 2029, total market liquidity could reach $961 billion, nearly five times the 2024 level and equivalent to 141% of GDP.

Growth drivers include the implementation of the KRX trading system, market status reclassification, longer trading hours, shorter settlement cycles, digitalization, and easy access to trading platforms. On the investor side, retail participation is rising rapidly, along with greater financial literacy and social engagement.

Over the next three years, VPS plans to allocate $150 million to IT investments, double its IT workforce, strengthen cybersecurity governance, and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance personal financial advisory services.

Beyond securities, VPS’s market-leading digital infrastructure and strong, clean balance sheet (with no proprietary trading exposure) position it to expand into new high-potential areas - notably commodity services and digital asset solutions, including tokenized real-world assets (RWA).

These will provide vast new opportunities for VPS’s continued breakthrough growth in the coming years.