Banking and financial services

Eric Sidgwick, Country director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Cambodia applauded Cambodia for managing it’s, sometimes problematic, public debts. During the Wednesday meeting with Deputy Prime Minister, Sok An, Eric Sidgwick said, good management led to the positive changes of donations and ...

A major Vietnamese bank is closing its brokerage and securities arm in Cambodia, an official said yesterday, amid the ongoing drought of listings on the Cambodian Securities Exchange (CSX). Sacombank, which will continue to operate as a bank in Cambodia, set up the securities firm ...

E. Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), the banking arm of E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), yesterday announced plans to buy a 70 percent stake in Phnom Penh, Cambodia-based Union Commercial Bank PLC (UCB) for US$69.33 million to facilitate its expansion into Southeast Asia. “We decided to ...

Debt levels among the more than 1,000 families being evicted by a $142.6 million railway project bankrolled by Australia and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) have reached “crisis” proportions and require major intervention, according to a U.S resettlement expert who was hired by the ADB ...

CAMBODIA’S first financial leasing company plans to rev up its market share for motorcycle financing from 15 to 45 percent starting this year. GL Finance plans to do so by increasing its number of branches here from 11 to 36, said Mitsuji Konoshita, chairman of Group ...

A lack of trade financing – the loans and guarantees needed to support import and export transactions – for international deals within developing Asian countries such as Cambodia is restricting opportunities for growth, a survey by the Asia Development Bank (ADB) has found. Of 106 banks ...

With Cambodia currently seen as a country where the laundering of illicit cash may be going undetected, an international expert yesterday warned that economic growth and more international trade could leave the country open to financial crime. Gert Demmink, a former head of supervision at ...

The Ministry of Commerce and bank officials announced yesterday that they will hold a meeting next month aimed at better facilitating rice millers’ access to credit. The move is part of the Asian Development Bank’s Climate Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development program to address food security ...

Cambodia economic growth was 7.3 percent in 2012. Agriculture grew by 4.3 percent, crops by 4.9 percent, fisheries by 6.7 percent, industry by 9.2 percent, garment [sector] by 6.9 percent and the service industry by 8.1 percent, said Dr Hang Chuon Naron, Secretary of State ...

Cambodia Post, a state-owned enterprise with plans to list on Cambodia’s bourse, will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) today with the Thai Post intended to provide electronic money transfer services between the two ASEAN neighbours. The initiative hopes to tap the growing remittance via ...

According to the [inter]national Monetary Fund (IMF), at the end of 2011, the stock of Cambodia’s external public debt, including arrears, stood at around US 3.8 billion or 30 percent of GDP (24 percent in NPV terms). China remains the largest bilateral creditor, contributing to ...

The UN’s assessment suggests that Cambodia is one of the top five countries that have made significant progress toward meeting its MDGs by 2015. The poverty rate has dropped dramatically from 47.50 percent in 1993 to 34.70 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2011, ...

Cambodia’s largest commercial bank, Acleda, plans to install 30 automatic teller machines (ATMs) this year as the bank expects about a million new depositors during the coming year. Acleda president and chief executive In Channy told the Post yesterday additional ATMs would be installed in Phnom ...

Hong Leong Bank Bhd (HLB) has received approval from Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce to open a wholly-owned, locally incorporated commercial bank in Cambodia. HLB said with a capital of US$37.5 million (RM116.2 million), Hong Leong Bank (Cambodia) Plc will commence operations in Cambodia within ...

CANADIA Bank and Japan-based Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Wednesday agreeing to work together to tap the flow of Japanese investors into the Kingdom. The MoU was signed by Canadia Bank chief executive officer Michael Lor and Masato Miyachi, the general manager ...

US-BASED Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) yesterday signed a deal to provide a $5 million long-term loan to Thaneakea Phum (Cambodia) Ltd (TPC), a local microfinance institution (MFI), to support TPC’s expansion of its home improvement loans for low-income Cambodians. Fernanda Lima, director of US-based socially ...

WHILE investments from the Middle East into Cambodia are expected to increase over the next few years, the central bank here currently has no plans to launch Islamic banking services. Recent events like Qatar Airway’s Doha-Phnom Penh flights, which launched earlier this month, have been expected ...

Qatar’s ambassador to Cambodia says his country wants to open a bank here in an effort to enhance, and attract more, trade and investment from Middle East countries to the Kingdom. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Arqaam Capital, a Dubai-based investment bank, had said it was ...

The first time Leang Horng, a resident of Kandal province’s Saang district, made use of a micro-finance institution, a loan was the only service he needed. At that time, Horng had no idea about deposits or money transfers. But things have changed in the past few ...

Lending by commercial banks in Cambodia grew by more than one-third last year, according to figures provided by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) yesterday. Banks lent out a total of $5.89 billion in 2012, compared with $4.39 billion in 2011, NBC figures show, meaning ...

An offshore financial services provider aiming to cater to expatriates in Cambodia hopes to tap into a market that has had its share of fly-by-night operators. Tag Wealth International, a subsidiary of the Australia-based Tag Group, began operations last month, offering advice in areas such as ...

Investment in Cambodia from overseas surged by at least 44 percent last year, according to an estimate from the central bank, despite figures suggesting a reduction in the overall flow of foreign currency into Southeast Asian economies. Nguon Sokha, director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia, ...

Malaysia-based Hong Leong Bank, a subsidiary of Hong Leong Financial Group Berhad, is planning to open a branch in Cambodia sometime this year, which would make it the fourth Malaysian bank and the 33rd commercial bank in Cambodia’s crowded banking industry. Ngoun Sokha, director general of the ...

Cambodia spent about $200 million on food and beverage imports to supply the domestic market last year – an increase of more than 10 per cent from the previous year, official data from the Ministry of Commerce show. Government officials and representatives of the private sector ...