“As we carry out our projects, we have received very close cooperation from the An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ABBank), which provides simple, rapid procedures for not only power companies with on-going projects, but also others in the electricity industry. We highly appreciate the bank’s efforts for our cooperation and strongly believe in its prestige and powerful and stable financial capacity,” said Mr Nguyen Huu Son, President of Power Construction Installation Co., Ltd No.4 (PCC4), on his company's good cooperation relationship with ABBank.
Compared with big lenders like Vietcombank, BIDV and Vietinbank, the ABBank is much “younger”, which has enabled ABBank to take dynamic, flexible and effective steps. What have made Mr Son and other big companies satisfied with the bank are not only its reasonable lending interest rate and guarantee fee, but also its readiness and willingness to listen to feedback and suggestions from customers and give satisfactory answers. For example, given that big-financed projects require proportionally big guarantee values, PCC4 asked ABBank to lower the guarantee rate and got approval from the lender. As a result, the company has its guarantee value lowered. The bank regularly sends customer surveys on service quality to make appropriate improvements.
PCC4 is seen as a customer in the class of the Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN), an electricity contractor that ABBank has defined as a strategic customer since 2008. Hence, ABBank has particularly focused on expanding the scale of service for this class of customer since 2013 with specific policies and supports in procedures and documents.
ABBank’s product package for electricity contractors is considered one of the most outstanding products in the finance and banking market at present. Not only included preferential interest rates and guarantee fees, the package is also categorised into items like financing small contractors, financing EVN material suppliers, financing potential power contractors, and financing power contactors with full-package option. Particularly, ABBank has specialised packages for power contractors to carry out power source projects, power transmission and distribution projects, thus helping customers edge up their competitiveness and differentiate their products.
Not only providing and improving diverse utility products and services for contractors, ABBank continuously researched and developed preferential lending and guarantee programmes for this potential customer segment in 2013 - 2015, including “Accompanying EVN machine and equipment contractors” programme in 2013, “contractor cooperation - longstanding development” programme in 2014 and “Incentives for contractors - Firm steps to success” programme in 2015. With the programme in 2015, the lending value for power contractors reached more than VND2 trillion and the closing balance at the end of the programme was nearly VND1,200 billion, up 170 per cent over 2014 and nearly five times that of 2013, thanks to its network of over 200 contractor customers. Driven by its strong growth in the past years, ABBank targets to raise its lending value to this group of customers to VND3 trillion in 2016 and VND8 trillion in 2018 and its closing balances at the end of these years, respectively, will be VND2 trillion and VND5 trillion.
Typically ABBank-financed contractors are present in many key power projects across the country, including Son La hydropower plant which was located in It Ong commune, Muong La district, Son La province. The plant was built on December 2, 2005 and completed on December 23, 2012, three years ahead of schedule. Apart from financing contractors of the largest hydropower plant in Southeast Asia, ABBank also funds contractors in Da Nhim hydropower plant, Bac Lieu wind power plant and Song Bung 2 hydropower plant among others.
Typically ABBank-funded power transmission projects included Bid 6 of the Lot 6.2: Building and installing transmission lines and line feeders on G23 Section to DC and line feeders at 220-kV Phu My 2 Substation in the 220-kV Phan Thiet - Phu My 2 line project and expanding 220-kV incoming feeders implemented by Power Construction Installation Co, Ltd No.4 (PCC4) or the Bid 5: Levelling, construction and installation of medium voltage cabinets and SCADA systems, computation and handover of all stations and supply of equipment and materials, construction and installation of all stations of the second 110-kV Tan Thoi Hiep substation installation project, the second 110-kV Binh Tri Dong substation installation project, the second 110-kV Nam Saigon substation installation project carried out by PCC5.
Mr Cu Anh Tuan, CEO of ABBank, said “In the long term, we will continue to focus on building comprehensive, optimal products for power contractors with preferential prices and fees, while renewing our pledge to ensure service quality and fast-track procedures which are seen as our gratitude to customers for their support and trust in our products and services in the past time.”
Quynh Anh
Vietnamese
