1:39:44 PM | 14/10/2008
The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has approved the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Banking Group to open its 100 per cent-owned bank in Vietnam, becoming the third foreign wholly owned bank to operate in the country after HSBC and Standard Chartered, state media reported.
Under the License No. 268/GP-NHNN dated October 9, the ANZ Bank Vietnam Ltd. will be capitalized at VND1 trillion (US$60.5 million), with its headquarters in Hanoi and will operate in Vietnam for 99 years.
The license for ANZ, which already has branches in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and a nationwide automatic teller machine network, is the third issued in one-month period after similar permits for HSBC and Standard Chartered Plc.
The new entity of ANZ, which owns 10 per cent in Sacombank, Vietnam’s second biggest listed bank, would expand banking activities to tap a large market in the country of 86.5 million people, only 10 per cent of whom have bank accounts.
ANZ, which has been in Vietnam for 14 years and is one of nearly 40 foreign banks in the country, would compete with HSBC and Standard Chartered and also four state-run banks, including the country’s top lender Agribank.
Though Vietnam’s economy is facing difficulties, ANZ still considers Vietnam as a key market in the region and keeps confident in long-term investment opportunities in the country because its government has pledged to boost economic liberalization, which helped the economy expand 7.5 per cent last year.
At present, Vietnam has 37 partly private banks, more than half of them small with total assets of less than US$1 billion each. (Vietnam Economic Times)
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