According to Deal Street Asia, a website covering financial investment news, IFC proposed investing US$150 million in ABBank to expand its banking services towards small and medium sized businesses.
The proposal includes commitments of a US$40 million direct loan (A loan) and a US$60 million syndicated loan (B loan), in addition to another US$50 million suggested to invest to ABBank.
Earlier in 2011, IFC provided a US$40.5 million conversion loan to this bank and successfully converted it into a 10% stake.
Maybank, a Malaysian bank, currently holds 20% stake of ABBank which is the maximum that an institution can hold in a Vietnamese bank.
The other shareholder of this bank is an Hanoi Export-Import Joint stock Company namely Geleximco who holds 13% stake.
This financing is expected to increase the possibility of accessing to financial services of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Vietnam.
Recently, VPBank also announced to convert IFC’s US$57 loan into a 5% stake. Its strategy to focus on individual (or retail sales) and small and medium enterprises (SME) has gained a lot of positive achievements.
In Vietnam, since 2016, IFC also holds 5% stake of TPBank. Earlier in 2011, this organisation invested US$300 million in Vietinbank to hold 10% stake which has been reduced to 8% so far.