Banking and financial services

While shopping for a brand-new television, 27-year-old Loek Bunhai recently bought a Sony flat-screen at the Sunsimexco retail outlet on Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard for $345. But with a monthly salary of $300 from his job as a microfinance officer in Phnom Penh, Mr. Bunhai was ...

Maybank will bet on what it said was Cambodia’s low bank-penetration rate for future growth as it transitions from a branch of its Malaysian parent into a locally incorporated subsidiary. With 34 licenced banks operating in a market with US$4.07 billion in loans in 2011, analysts ...

The Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday signed a US$60.3 million loan package with Asian Development Bank to aid in reconstruction efforts after the Kingdom last year suffered its worst floods in a decade. ...

Maybank launched yesterday its locally incorporated company in Cambodia, Maybank (Cambodia) Plc, and will also build a 10-storey corporate office with the aim of becoming one of the top five banks there by 2015. Currently ranked seventh in terms of assets among 33 banks operating ...

Net profits at Acleda Bank increased by 86% to $49.4 million in 2011 as the company grew both its deposits and loan portfolio. In a statement released on Friday, Acleda said that loans grew by 35.4 percent to $989.4 million, while deposits at the bank ...

Diamond Island Development Co Ltd, owned by Canadia Bank, yesterday bought a 15 per cent stake in Investment and Development Company of Cambodia (IDCC)’s Cambodia-Vietnam Insurance Plc. The companies declined to give the value of the stake. Ngay Mengly, sales officer at Cambodia-Vietnam Insurance Plc, said ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), one of the two major financiers of the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways, yesterday rejected criticism that they were providing insufficient resettlement packages to residents displaced by the project. On Friday, the ADB released a cost study that showed that the compensation ...

The inquiry that targeted Hun To, dubbed Operation Illipango, investigated the shipment of heroin into Australia from Cambodia in loads of timber. Hun To, a nephew of Prime Minister Hun Sen, is a powerful and feared figure in Cambodia. He was once considered a close business ...

The Credit Bureau of Cambodia officially commenced operations at its Phnom Penh headquarters on Monday, according to CBC spokesman Steve Vaile ...

The long-awaited Cambodian Credit Bureau (CBC) launched yesterday, a move that is expected to increase the amount of information banks retain on the history of borrowers in the banking system. Despite loan disbursals in the banking sector growing by 25 percent last year, banks have so ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) is an important component of a larger ecosystem of capital markets, according to Eugene Lam, CEO of OSK Indochina Securities Ltd, one of Cambodia’s securities underwriters approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC). Lam says one of ...

The auditor who submitted a report used to convict a husband and wife of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from a company owned by the wife of a tycoon senator admitted yesterday that the quality of his audit was “poor”. The report was used ...

The long awaited first security listing on the Cambodian Securities Exchange became a reality on February 23 with the Security Exchange Commission of Cambodia’s “in principle” approval of Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority’s (PPWSA) “disclosure document for public issuance of equity securities”. This is effectively a ...

Central banks in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plan to set up an “ASEAN bank” system that would make it easier for designated banks to set up subsidiaries and operate throughout the region, according to official sources. The plan to set up ASEAN banks is ...

How did the floods affect the industry late last year? Of course, we were worried when the floods began because many people were affected. When the floods continued, we did a survey and found that just about 10 per cent of MFI borrowers were affected. But ...

Digital cash services in Cambodia showed marked increases in users and cash flow in 2011, and still more growth is expected this year as operators launch new services and partnerships to capture a large but still-untapped rural market. The services, in which customers transfer money via ...

PRASAC, Cambodia’s largest microfinance institution by outstanding loans, planned to become a licensed commercial bank in the Kingdom, company officials said yesterday. The news comes despite calls from insiders and experts – most recently the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – for the National ...

Vietnam-based Dragon Capital is raising up to US$100 million for a new Indochina fund, some of which the private equity firm would invest in Cambodian agriculture and infra-structure, Dragon’s chief information officer Bill Stoops said yesterday. Dragon Capital has a 20 per cent stake ...

An International Monetary Fund and World Bank report has questioned Cambodia’s ability to deal with future financial crises if government borrowing increases. While the report indicated that Cambodia was at low risk for severe debt problems, it highlighted the need for effective management of new debt ...

Garment-making has been a mainstay of Cambodia’s fledgling economy, chalking up between 6 and 7 percent annually for the past four years. But, the country is turning its focus back to the land in the hope that rice growing and other farming produce, will lift growth ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on microfinance institutions to reduce interest rates and expand repayment periods for the tens of thousands of families affected by last year’s devastating floods. Addressing microfinance institutions (MFIs) on Tuesday during a conference at the Ministry of Rural Development, ...

The curse of Cambodia’s 2011 floods continues for those most affected, as they fall deeper into debt from unsustainable cyclical debt practices, a consortium of international NGOs said yesterday. The consortium of Care, Oxfam, Pact and Catholic Relief Services released the results of their January survey ...

Nautisco Seafood Manufacturing Inc, a Canadian-Cambodian shrimp producer in Preah Sihanouk province, has accused the private equity fund Leopard Capital, one of its shareholders, of draining the company of its finances. In a statement released Friday, Nautisco said that Phnom Penh Municipal Court had ordered the ...

The US government is working with a Cambodian microfinance institution to finance $2.7million in loans to farmers and small- and medium-sized agro-businesses in Battambang, Kompong Thom, Pursat and Siem Reap provinces in order to improve their access to credit, the US Embassy said. USAid will work ...