Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Van Binh has permitted SeABank to raise its charter capital to 5.46 trillion VND (260 million USD) from 5.33 trillion VND (254 million USD).

This increase was allowed as part of the charter capital raising plan approved at this year's Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) shareholder meeting.

Raising charter capital is meant to enhance the finance capacity of a bank and create incentives to expand its network and diversify banking services, while raising its competitiveness to meet increasing demands from customers.

Currently, France's top-tier retail bank, Societe Generale, holds a 20 percent stake of SeABank, with the remainder being held by domestic shareholders.

Thanks to sound management and effective support from foreign strategic partner Societe Generale, as well as local partners MobiFone and PV Gas, SeABank has witnessed market developments in products and services diversification focusing on retail banking.

Its intensive investment into information technology infrastructure is proving a key factor in perfecting customer service quality. SeABank is developing cloud computing with modern applications to improve customer experience.

SeABank has been crowned Best Customer Service Bank Vietnam 2013 by the UK’s online financial forum Global Banking & Finance Review (GBAF). The bank’s chairwoman Nguyen Thi Nga was also named Most Innovative Banking Chairperson Vietnam 2013.-VNA