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Standard Chartered to open first Vietnam bank by midyear
Standard Chartered Plc, the UK’s second-largest bank by market value, plans to open its first locally incorporated bank in Vietnam this year, Ashok Sud, Hanoi-based chief executive for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, said.
“We are hoping to open a subsidiary by mid this year,” Sud said in an interview on Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City. Becoming locally incorporated will allow the bank to receive deposits from Vietnamese customers in local currency and may allow it to expand its branch network.
Standard Chartered, which holds 15 percent of Asia Commercial Bank, is set to link its service to the Vietnamese partner’s network next week to allow customers to use Asia Commercial' 300 automated teller machines in the country, he said.
The lender would work with Asia Commercial, Vietnam’s biggest listed company by market value, to offer more services, such as issuing co-branded cards, rather than setting new branches, he said.
The lender said in March last year it would set up between 20 and 30 branches over the next three to four years.
“We are reviewing that plan," Sud said. “At this stage, I will not be able t put a number to how many branches we will open in the next three years.”
Standard Chartered does not plan to raise its stake in Asia Commercial as the London-based lender is “really comfortable” with the partnership with Dragon Capital and Jardine Matheson, which are holding the other half of the 30 percent limit in Asia Commercial, Ray Ferguson, head of South East Asia at Standard Chartered, said.
Vietnam’s central bank in September and October last year granted licenses to HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered, and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. to set up 100 percent foreign-owned lenders in the country.
Bloomberg, thanh nien
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