Vietnam

The Land Bank of Taiwan has closed its representative office in Ho Chi Minh City.

Maritime Bank will appoint a foreigner to the bank’s general director position this year.

Agribank aims to expand its operations and double its credit growth by 2015 even as it undergoes a partial privatisation.

Navibank posted a pre-tax profit of US$1.999 million for thefirst two months of 2012, up 9.1 percent against the end of 2011.

Cross straits banking stands to receive a needed shot in the arm.

A disconcerting jump in bad debts is forcing Vietnam to take measures to prop up the country’s banking industry.

Sacombank hopes to expand remittance payment services for local individual customers with its new deal with Coinstar Money Transfer.

A hostile takeover is brewing as Eximbank leads other shareholders of Sacombank in demanding a new management board.

The merged Saigon Commercial Bank earned a profit of US$3.26 billion in the first month of this year.

Navibank announced a US$1.064 pre-tax profit for January 2012.

Vietnam's Ministry of Construction is seeking approval from the State Bank of Vietnam to set up a new bank. The ministry's proposal comes at the behest of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, and would establish the Vietnam Construction Bank. Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Tran Nam said the proposal is appropriate to the country’s current economic circumstances and that it is in line with world trends for construction banks. The proposed bank is expected to foster the construction of large construction projects and be a source of capital form construction materials, he noted. He added that the bank would be a good thing for a slowing real estate market.

NamA Bank has been categorised in the Group 2, among banks with average operations, by the State Bank of Vietnam.

The management board of Vietinbank has approved the proposal of increasing chartered capital in 2012 in two phases.

Moody's announced credit ratings for HCM City-based Sacombank. It assigned ratings of B2 (not-prime) to Sacombank's long- and short-term foreign currency deposits and B1 (not-prime) to its long- and short-term local currency deposits. It gave the bank a long- and short-term foreign and local currency issuer rating of B1. Moody's assigned Sacombank a Bank Financial Strength Rating (BFSR) of E+. The outlook for all ratings was stable, except for the foreign currency deposit and issuer ratings which carried negative outlook, reflecting the overall negative outlook on Viet Nam's foreign currency, Moody's said. The ratings reflected Sacombank's tightened liquidity, moderate risk absorption capacity, and moderate single-borrower concentrations versus global peers, as well as uncertainties surrounding its shareholding structure and share buy-back plans and inherent challenges in Viet Nam's operating environment. Moody's analysis also took into account the strengths of the bank's credit profile, particularly the quality of its franchise as the sixth-largest bank in Viet Nam by asset-size and the one with the largest network of branches and ATMs in the country. They also noted its diversified loan portfolio, with the consumer sector accounting for about a third of its loans, and lower problem loans compared with the average for the Vietnamese banking sector, supported by above-average loan-loss reserve coverage. "Its sizable and stable core deposit base accounted for nearly 60 per cent of its funding at the end of 2010, with a profile mainly in local currency," Moody's reported. Sacombank may not be able to sustain its good financial metrics over the medium term due to the lack of portfolio diversification and the challenging operating environment, characterised by high inflation and a tightening monetary policy, Moody's said.

VietinBank Board Member Tran Xuan Chau has been appointed Deputy Head of the Credit Department of Vietnam's central bank.

Based on a roadmap developed by the Vietnamese government and the central bank, The local banking system will be restructured comprehensively in 2012.