From “treasurer” to “strategic investor”: Vietnamese women assert their financial position

VTV.vn - From "treasurer" to "strategic investor", Vietnamese women are increasingly confident, financially independent and affirming their position in the dynamic stock market.

In the context of a positive macro economy , the stock market has also been officially upgraded by FTSE, opening a new phase of the stock market after 25 years of formation and development. And in the new phase, not only the efforts of management agencies, but also market members, especially investors, will need to change to keep up with the development of the market. And female investors are also increasingly demonstrating financial independence as well as the ability to invest effectively in the market.

According to statistics from Grant Thornton International, the proportion of women holding senior management positions in the medium-sized enterprise sector globally has increased significantly. In line with this trend, in Vietnam, the proportion of women holding leadership positions is also expected to reach 34% by 2025, higher than in the Asia- Pacific region. In addition, the proportion of female CFOs in Vietnamese enterprises is also higher than in many other countries. In the stock market, the number of female investors is increasing. For example, according to statistics from KIM Vietnam Fund Management Company, the proportion of women among investors of the KDEF Fund is currently up to 47%, a relatively high level, almost equivalent to that of male investors.

Discussing this issue in the Finance Street Talk Show on VTV8 , Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of the Analysis Center ofACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS), assessed that female investors are increasingly demonstrating their financial independence as well as their ability to invest effectively in the market, as well as making more and more changes to keep up with the market's development in the new era.

Editor Khanh Ly: In the context that the country is entering an era of national growth, the economy has grown for 3 consecutive quarters reaching nearly 8%, each quarter is higher than the previous quarter, how do you evaluate the current economy?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of the Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): As we have seen, the Government's GDP growth target for 2025 is 8.3% - 8.5% and for 2026 it is 10%. In the first 9 months of 2025, the average GDP is reaching 7.84%, so to reach the target of 8.3% for the whole year of 2025, the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2025 must reach 9.7%. I think this is quite a challenge, especially in the context of the recent natural disasters and floods. Therefore, I think that the growth rate of 8.0% is more feasible for 2025, corresponding to the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2025 will need to reach 8.5%.

Analyzing more deeply the growth drivers of GDP, we see that the main growth of GDP in the first 6 months of the year still comes from import and export, industrial production and public investment. Meanwhile, consumption and retail have not really improved. But in the third quarter, the growth driver is gradually shifting to public investment. Retail consumption also recovered more clearly in August and September, while import and export are slowing down due to the tariff effect. As for public investment, after 9 months we have completed 55.7% of the yearly plan, up 27.8%. Therefore, I expect that GDP in the fourth quarter of 2025 can reach 8.5% thanks to promoting public investment to complete the disbursement progress, and at the same time implementing policies to stimulate consumption.

Editor Khanh Ly: With a positive economy, the stock market has also benefited from positive growth of several dozen percent since the beginning of the year. In addition, after many efforts, the Vietnamese stock market has finally been upgraded to a secondary emerging market by FTSE. What is your opinion on this?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): As we know, on October 8, FTSE Russell recognized the Vietnamese stock market as a secondary emerging market, with an effective date of September 21, 2026, and depends on the assessment results in March 2026 on whether Vietnam has made enough progress in facilitating global brokers' access to the market. This is positive news for the Vietnamese stock market after many years of waiting. And with the recent efforts of the Government, we believe that the March 2026 assessment will only be a technical factor.

And while waiting for the law to take effect, we have two milestones to pay attention to. The first is March 2026, which is the time when investment funds that actively allocate capital to emerging markets can start to disburse into the Vietnamese stock market (estimated at 3-7 billion USD in 5 years). The second milestone is September 2026, which is the time when passive investment funds that simulate emerging market ETF indexes can disburse into the stock market (600 million to 1.5 billion USD in about 3-6 months). However, except for passive capital flows that will automatically flow in, active capital flows, with a much larger scale, will pay attention to many factors when deciding to invest in a market, including the growth potential of the economy and businesses on the stock exchange, the risk of devaluation of the domestic currency, and whether the valuation is attractive enough or not?

Therefore, I think that in the meantime (the next 6-12 months), we still need to focus on the fundamentals of the Vietnamese economy and the Vietnamese stock market. In short, the current success is just the first step in the effort to upgrade the Vietnamese stock market in the period 2025-2030. We still have a lot of work to do to prepare for the review in March 2026, and at the same time aim to be on the MSCI EM watchlist in June 2026, thereby aiming for an upgrade to MSCI EM in 2030.

Ms. Do Minh Trang (right) participated in a discussion with editor Khanh Ly at the Finance Street Talk Show on VTV8.

Editor Khanh Ly: In recent times, in addition to institutional changes, the structure of investors participating in the stock market has also changed in terms of age and gender. How do you see women investing in recent times?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of the Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): In the context of the entire economy, according to Grant Thornton's report, in the mid-sized enterprise market, over the past two decades, the proportion of women holding senior management positions has increased from 19.4% in 2024 to 34.0% in 2025. This reflects the rise of women in socio-economic activities and towards a gender equality structure. In the banking and finance industry, this ratio is even overwhelming. Most banks report a female employee ratio of over 50%, some banks like ACB have this ratio of over 60%. In the sustainable development reports of securities companies, many companies also have a female employee ratio of over 50%. At a higher level, we currently have three female leaders for three important positions in the finance and banking sector: the State Bank, the Securities Commission and the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VSDC). We believe that the increasing role of women in the financial market is an inevitable trend, as women's financial and investment knowledge is increasingly improved.

Going deeper into the data of stock investors, according to the latest statistics of VSDC, by the end of September 2025, the number of stock accounts reached about 10.99 million accounts, completing the target by 2030 of the Stock Market Development Strategy. Although there is no detailed report on the age and gender of stock investors, however, through observations from ACBS's customer file, we see that the proportion of female investors is increasing. Although the level of interest of female investors is mainly concentrated in underlying securities. While male investors will be interested in more complex products, such as derivatives and covered warrants.

Editor Khanh Ly: So in the coming time, when the country is in a new phase of strong growth, and the stock market has been upgraded, what investment strategy should female investors have to be effective?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): The biggest catalyst from the market upgrade story is the expectation of investors on new capital flows from foreign investors after the market is upgraded. Including firstly, passive cash flow from ETF funds trading according to the FTSE EM index and secondly, cash flow from active funds focusing on investing in emerging markets as I discussed above. However, although there may be differences in investment methods, foreign investors when investing in the Vietnamese stock market will be interested in factors such as the ability to buy stocks, that is, whether there is room for foreign investors to buy or not, the growth prospects of the economy, industries and enterprises in the medium and long term, the level of depreciation of the domestic currency and the valuation of the Vietnamese stock market when compared with similar stock markets, or when comparing between industries and stocks in the same industry.

Therefore, we believe that stocks in the large-cap group with foreign room, good business performance prospects, and suitable valuations will benefit from the upgrade story. These are stocks in sectors such as banking and retail. These two sectors have the ability to maintain stable profits, along with the development of the economy and per capita income. Therefore, they are suitable for the medium and long-term vision. Meanwhile, real estate and securities stocks still have the opportunity to increase in the short term (quarter 4/2025-2026) thanks to the prospect of recording profits from the recovery of the real estate market and the outstanding growth of the stock market in both liquidity and scores.

Editor Khanh Ly: So in the context of the upgraded market, which industry groups have potential that female investors should pay attention to, in your opinion?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): In fact, the common goal of all stock investors is to seek profits. However, investment styles will be very different, influenced by financial knowledge, risk appetite, age and gender... According to East Asian tradition, women often play the role of "treasurer" in the family. Therefore, they often prioritize saving and protecting assets, preferring stability over risky investment decisions, to try to achieve the highest rate of return. Therefore, their risk appetite is often lower than that of men.

Based on the characteristics of this gender, we believe that the appropriate investment strategy for women in general, in our opinion, should be, first, to buy stocks in the direction of accumulation, choose good stocks, stable long-term growth, along with the growth of the economy, and buy regularly, frequently over a long period of time. The source of money to buy can be the idle money saved after deducting living expenses and other types of reserve funds.

The first thing is to have a balanced investment portfolio, with the goal of higher profits than savings interest rates in the long term. If it is just a stock portfolio, focus on stocks in the banking, retail, and essential utilities sectors, with regular dividend cash flows. If the asset size is large enough, you can build a liquid asset portfolio including savings deposits, good corporate bonds, stocks, and gold. Or look for mid-range real estate segments with rental cash flows of over 4% and still have room to benefit from infrastructure development.

Editor Khanh Ly: And on your side, in the new phase of the market and the country, what solutions will there be to support and accompany female investors in particular and investors in general on the journey of effective investment?

Ms. Do Minh Trang, Director of Analysis Center, ACB Securities Company Limited (ACBS): As a member of the market, we have responsibilities as well as benefits when the market is increasingly developing. Therefore, we will always accompany the governing agencies in improving the transparency of the market, increasing quality as well as improving the experience for foreign investors in the coming time, thereby contributing to the market to maintain the FTSE upgrade, and continue to meet the MSCI upgrade criteria in the coming time.

With the goal of focusing on investors and customers, ACBS always tries to best meet all the needs of investors, of all ages and genders. We focus on providing solutions such as quality and timely reports on market developments to all investors. In addition, depending on each investor segment, we deploy solution packages that suit the needs. For example, reducing transaction fees for investors trading online without brokers, providing margins with competitive interest rates.

In addition, we always try to improve the trading infrastructure to bring the best experience to customers, through the conversion of the core system in 2024. In 2025, we have Smarty AI consulting completely free of charge for customers so that customers can access more in-depth consulting information from verified reports and data sources.

In the future, ACBS's investment consulting model will move towards the Wealth Advisory model - asset management. This allows consultants to personalize according to the investor's risk appetite and financial situation. Thus, female investors will be able to find more suitable advice for themselves. Finally, we aim for the One stop shop model by diversifying solutions further, for example, distributing many types of CCQ, high-quality corporate bonds... This is also in line with the development trend of the Vietnamese stock market in the coming years.

Editor Khanh Ly: Thank you for the information.

Source: https://vtv.vn/tu-tay-hom-chia-khoa-den-nha-dau-tu-chien-luoc-phu-nu-viet-khang-dinh-vi-the-tai-chinh-100251021092536234.htm