Local bank assets fall in January   Transactions are conducted at VPBank's branch in Thai Binh Province. The total assets of banks at the end of January declined by 1.04 per cent against the end of 2013 to reach VND5,696 trillion. - VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet HA NOI (VNS)- The total assets of banks in the country at the end of January declined by 1.04 per cent against the end of 2013 to reach VND5,696 trillion, or US$258.9 billion. According to the State Bank of Viet Nam's data, the State-owned commercial banks reported the highest decrease in assets of 2.21 per cent. The joint stock commercial banks followed with a drop of 0.97 per cent and the group of finance companies and financial leasing companies was down by 0.41 per cent. However, the group of joint venture and foreign banks reported a rise of 2.64 per cent in its total assets. Despite the asset reduction, the equity and charter capital of the banking sector kept rising at rates of 1.52 per cent and 0.63 per cent to reach VND474.024 trillion, or $21.546 billion, and VND426.651 trillion, or $19.393 billion, respectively. According to the central bank's data, for the first time the group of joint venture and foreign banks posted the strongest growth in terms of the total assets, compared to the State-owned commercial banks last year. According to the data, at the end of December 2013, the group of joint venture and foreign banks saw an asset growth of 26.92 per cent from the end of December 2012, marking an impressive figure compared to the previous years. Meanwhile, the total assets of the group of State-owned commercial banks last year increased by 13.77 per cent and that of the joint stock commercial banks by 14.8 per cent. The group of finance companies and financial leasing companies continued to have a difficult period with a negative ratio of 57.76 per cent in terms of the total assets as against December 2012. - VNS