Five banks are interested in purchasing ANZ’s retail business in Vietnam. (Photo: anz.com) Hanoi (VNA) - TheAustralia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) plans to sell its Vietnam retailbusiness, a source close to the matter has told the Saigon Times Online.
According to the source, three foreign and two local banks arehoping to acquire ANZ’s retail business unit in Vietnam.
The Vietnam retail business will not be sold to Singapore-basedDBS Bank Ltd, the source said. DBS is not on the list of five potential buyersfor the deal.
In late October 2016, DBS purchased ANZ’s retail banking andwealth management units in five Asia markets for some 110 million USD in bookvalue, according to international media.
The deals were based on business performance, profitability andstrategy, and would limit ANZ’s activities in some segments for Asian clients.The bank would, instead, focus on its core businesses for the Asia region suchas capital market, bond market, cash-flow management, corporate banking andinvestment banking.
The value of retail banking business units transferred in theAsia region is small in comparison with ANZ’s total scale value.
Vietnam News tried to contact ANZ for more details, however, theMelbourne-based bank declined to comment.
ANZ expanded strongly in Asia prior to 2013 and purchased stakein local commercial banks, including HCM City-based Sacombank. Since October2015, ANZ has divested from its earlier small-scale investments and focused onits core businesses.
Other Australian banks have also offloaded stake in investmentsand closed their representative branches outside the New Zealand and Australiamarkets. They have planned not to expand further in the Southeast Asia regionafter the Australian government made changes in its banking policies regardingclass-one capital, lending and banking retail activities such as real estatetrading.-VNA
VNA
