Shareholders of PetroVietnam Finance Corporation (PVFC) at its annual general meeting last Saturday approved plans to transform the firm into a commercial joint stock bank and merge with Western Bank. The would-be bank will have a chartered capital of VND9 trillion and total assets of VND100 trillion. The capital consolidation is based on capital and assets of PVFC and Western Bank. Each PVFC share... 

* BIDV, TienPhong Bank cooperation deal Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, or BIDV, has plans to inject over VND5.19 trillion into its charter capital this year by paying stock dividend and selling shares to existing shareholders. BIDV expects to spur its capital to VND28.2 trillion by the end of the year against the current level of VND23 trillion. To realize this target, the bank will... 

BIDV and VietinBank reduced their deposit rates on Thursday after Vietcombank had officially brought down its deposit rates on Monday, signaling lending rate cuts in the coming days. A press release from VietinBank says that the bank now quotes the interest rate for dong deposits of less than 12 months at 7% per annum, or 0.5 percentage point lower than the ceiling rate. Meanwhile, BIDV on Wednessday... 

The credit growth of the banking system started to show improvement in January-April, at 1.4%, though it was only 0.03% in the first quarter, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reports. The above credit growth is quite positive compared to a reduction of 0.2% in the same period in 2012. However, according to SBV, the credit improvement is still lower than the target. The low credit growth is often seen... 

Many banks have brought forward merger plans at their annual shareholders’ meetings, including several obvious deals to be carried out soon. The merger between Dai A Bank and HDBank has been approved by the central bank, said HDBank Chairwoman Le Thi Bang Tam at the recent shareholders’ meeting, where the proposal for this merger was passed. Similarly, the merger plans by Maritime Bank, Sacombank... 

Three different core-banking systems of Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), Ficombank and TinNghiaBank have been merged into one system at SCB. At a function on the completion of the Oracle Flexcube Corebanking project in HCMC last Saturday, SCB informed this is a step to upgrade the information technology system at the bank. According to SCB general director Le Khanh Hien, after the three lenders were merged... 

Vietnam Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank) picked PwC Vietnam Co. Ltd. as the provider of core banking solutions through an agreement signed in Hanoi on Monday. According to VietinBank, core banking application is its key project but it has high risks and complications. VietinBank therefore has decided to hire the independent supervising and consulting unit for the success of the project. Ian... 

Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, or Vietcombank, finds it hard to obtain this year’s after-tax profit target of VND5.8 trillion given many difficulties ahead. Nguyen Phuoc Thanh, general director of Vietcombank, said that the lender might fail to liquidate mortgaged assets to recover debts while it is almost impossible for many enterprises to pay debts by themselves. However, as most of its bad... 

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on Monday announced to cut the cap on dong deposit rates from 8% to 7.5% per annum for tenors from one month to less than 12 months from today, while interest for longer tenors are still decided by credit institutions. SBV also cut its policy rate by another percentage point with the refinancing rate cut to 8% from 9%. The discount rate fell from 7% to 6%, while the... 

ANZ Vietnam has just been awarded “Best Retail Bank in Vietnam” in The Asian Banker’s International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2013. “We differentiate ourselves from the competition by having a clear and focused strategy and execution of achieving the core bank status targeting the affluent and emerging affluent segments in Vietnam. 2012 has seen the significant progress...