CIMB set its first branch in Hanoi

December 12, 2016 | 08:00

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CIMB Group has made itself more visible in Vietnam through the official launch of its first branch in Hanoi today, which will be followed by another in Ho Chi Minh City next year.

illustration photo source SGT

“We are opening a branch in Hanoi and then hopefully we will have a branch in Ho Chi Minh City early next year, and we will then expand into multiple segments,” Nariz Rarak, chairman of CIMB Group, told VIR ahead of the official launch of CIMB Vietnam on Friday, on the side-lines of the Bloomberg ASEAN Business Summit in Hanoi last Thursday.

“We want to look at the consumer space, but we will pipe into our international investment banking and corporate financing platform, as well,” noted Rarak.

Rarak added that they are going to focus on these two branches to then use them as bases to expand operations. “It is a long-term game and we do not want to rush.”

When asked on how CIMB Vietnam would compete with a raft of local banks on their home turf, Razak stressed that, “We are too small to compete with local banks, so we will focus on a niche affluent market and compete for customers who do lots of business in ASEAN. That’s the whole competitive advantage of CIMB.”

In September, Malaysia’s second-biggest lender by assets, CIMB Bank, became the latest ASEAN bank to receive a licence from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to operate a 100 per cent foreign-owned subsidiary in the country.

CIMB Bank will now join fellow Malaysian lenders Public Bank Berhad and Hong Leong Bank in establishing a presence in the country. Public Bank Berhad obtained approval to operate from the SBV earlier in the year, while Hong Leong Bank began to offer a full suite of banking products in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009, covering a wide spectrum of regional investors and customers coming in and out of Vietnam for business and investment activities.

By By Trang Nguyen

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