CBA owns 20 per cent stake in VIB

CBA has invested an additional amount of VND1.15 trillion ($54.7 million) in VIB in order to further strengthen the capital base and capital adequacy ratio (CAR), and expand business opportunities and operation scale for the bank.

Accordingly, CBA’s stake was increased to 20 per cent from 15 per cent in VIB’s charter capital. VIB's shareholders’ equity is now more than VND8.2 trillion ($390 million).

A year ago, VIB and CBA announced the foreign bank’s stake holding of 15 per cent worth VND2.25 trillion ($107.1 million) in the local bank.

CBA has not only invested capital in VIB but also conducted a "capability transfer” programme with the view to helping further improve the latter’s business, management, risk management capabilities, and strengthen its competitiveness.

Wayne Hoy, general manager of International Financial Services Division of CBA Sydney said: “Both VIB and CBA share the objective of being number one bank for customer experience in our respective countries. With CBA's increased investment in VIB, we have expanded our commitment to capability transfer to help the bank implement its business and operation plans and to grow sustainably.”

Han Ngoc Vu, chairman of the Board of Directors of VIB said: “For many years VIB has determined its vision to incessantly improve its customer service quality, finance and risk management capabilities to meet international standards. That CBA has been a strategic shareholder for more than one year and its stake increased from 15 per cent to 20 per cent is part of the roadmap contributing to realising the vision.”
 
“Recently, Fitch Ratings – one of the world’s leading rating agencies has commented that Vietnam’s banks need to raise capital in order to increase their capital reserves and expand operations. CBA’s increased stake at VIB is part of our roadmap set in the beginning of the year so as to create a strong financial foundation to serve the bank’s development strategies”.

By September, 2011, after 15 years of operation VIB has become one of the top commercial joint stock banks in Vietnam with the total assets of more than VND100 trillion ($5 billion).

Currently, VIB has more than 4,000 staff serving more than one million customers at 150 branches and transaction offices in 27 key provinces and cities throughout the country.

VIB, with a CAR of approximately 14 per cent against the rate of 9 per cent set by the State Bank of Vietnam, is among the banks that choose to operate safely and develop sustainably as its philosophy.

With the vision “to be the most innovative and customer-centric bank of Vietnam”, VIB has taken consistent solutions in its business models in order to bring the best experiences to customers.

One hundred year old CBA is the leading financial institution in Australia, and at the same time, one of the world’s safest banks. It is now in the world’s top 10 largest banks in terms of market capitalisation.