VietinBank wins prestigious Asset Triple A Award

The Best Trade Finance Service Provider award was given to VietinBank  “remarkable achievements in trade finance”.

As the only Vietnamese bank to win an award this year and the first to be recognised by the Asset as Best Trade Finance Service Provider, VietinBank stood among global leading banks such as Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, JP Morgan Chase, Citi Bank, Standard Chartered and . HSBC among others.

The Asset Triple A Treasury, Trade & Risk Management Awards identify Asian banking institutions and corporations with the most effective and innovative treasury, trade and risk management solutions and also recognises CFOs and treasurers who have contributed to creating industry best practice in Asia.

Being an Asian leading financial and banking magazine, the Asset delivers 17,000 copies per monthly issue, a majority readers of which are financial executive managers and experts. The Triple A’s awards process adopted a rigorous and transparent approach to the selection of the best banks and institutions in each category which have made actual contribution to the growth of the financial and bankiing sector in a year. The applicants have undergone a thorough process of application document preparation as well as interviews and assessment by the Asset’s board of editiors who have more than three decades’ experience in evaluating the best practice in Asia.

The awards ceremony is an important annual event that attracts banking leaders from all over Asia.

Two representatives from VietinBank, Pham Huy Thong, member of the Board of Directors cum deputy general director and Phan Thi Hong Hai, executive director of the bank’s Main Operation Centre, attended the ceremony and received the award on the bank’s behalf.

With the establishment of VietinBank Main Operation Centre in 2008, VietinBank was the first and only commercial bank in the country to put into operation a centre for centralised processing of trade finance and international payments that met international standards.

The bank has since reported steady and sustainable growth in trade finance and international payments, with a combined turnover that has shot up from $12.1 billion in 2009 to $37.09 billion in 2013 or 30 per cent growth per year.

VietinBank has also pioneered trade finance products not yet common Vietnam such as factoring, forfeiting, risk participation, supply chain financing and Usance LC payable at sight (UPAS LC).

Additionally, the bank has substantial advantages in raising short and long-term financing from foreign financial institutions to facilitate its trade finance business, taking the lead in research and application of financial structures for international fund raising. It has closed deals with global financial leaders and obtained competitive-interest long-term loans under the export credit agencies of OECD governments such as Sinosure (China), SERV (Switzerland) and Hermes (Germany).

These were the first cases of a Vietnamese commercial bank being covered by reputable ECAs without a government guarantee.

Especially in 2013 VietinBank successfully closed the deal of borrowing €120 million from KFW and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation under Hermes’ credit cover.

VietinBank is also the first Vietnamese institution to conduct successful transactions under the GSM-102, an export credit guarantee programme under the US’ Ministry of Agriculture and was granted the largest available credit line of $90 million.

VietinBank also got a $120 million facility from Asian Development Bank for its trade finance guarantee programme.

In June 2013, based on the assessment of performance and risk management by VietinBank in trade finance, the IFC granted a guarantee line of $120 million with tenor of up to three years to VietinBank to finace import and export transactions of Vietnamese private enterprises. This made VietinBank the first and only joint stock commercial bank with majority state control to have been granted a guarantee facility credit line by the IFC.

With a vision to become a modern, international standard, multi-functional financial banking group by 2018, VietinBank is making great efforts to increase its growth rate, expand market share, maintain its leading role in the banking sector, and enhance its financial capabilities and competitiveness while ensuring safety, efficiency and sustainability to make ever-greater contributions to the stability and development of the banking sector and the national economy.