Banking and financial services

Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya PLC., known more commonly as Krungsri announced last week that it was entering the Cambodian microfinance market with the acquisition of Hatta Kaksekar Limited (HKL). In a press release, Krungsri ‒ itself part of the Japanese-based Mitsubishi UFJ since 2013 ‒ described ...

The country’s financial institutions are closely monitoring loans that have been made to rice farmers, who say that this year’s fall in rice prices will affect their ability to make repayments, industry officials said yesterday. Last year, farmers were paid around 840 riel ($0.21) per kilogram ...

Rice millers in the country will now be able to access the government’s promised emergency loan of $20 million to purchase paddy rice from farmers in a bid to prevent rice prices from falling further, the Rural Development Bank (RDB) announced yesterday. Rural Development Bank CEO ...

A banking sector initiative launched yesterday aims to advise Cambodia’s financial sector on best practices for sustainable lending while capitalising on the growing pool of international funds that could flow into green and socially responsible projects. The Sustainable Finance Initiative will conduct two years of ...

Eight months since announcing the biggest acquisition deal in the history of Cambodia’s financial sector, Thailand-based Bank of Ayudhya, also known as Krungsri Bank, has yet to receive approval for the landmark deal. In a statement released in January, Bank of Ayudhya announced its intention ...

More than a year into a government-backed campaign to clamp down on unlicensed lenders, nearly 130 small lenders operating under the radar have come into the fold, officials said yesterday. ...

State-run energy utility Electricité du Cambodge (EdC) has asked banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) to stop using third-party services to collect payment of customer electricity fees, local media reported yesterday. ...

Cambodia’s beleaguered rice millers can now breathe a sigh of relief after a tumultuous three months in what seemed to be government ineptitude in disbursing an emergency loan of $30 million to prevent them from becoming insolvent. In June, the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) announced that ...

Bank of China, one of the five biggest state-owned commercial banks in China, will expand its operations in Cambodia by opening new branches in Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, a local bank executive said yesterday. ...

Cambodia and China last week signed an agreement to exchange financial intelligence to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, though experts said the Kingdom should still be doing more to tackle an issue that has long persisted in the country, in part, due to local ...

New data released by Cambodia’s independent credit reporting agency indicate a significant slowdown in the rate of lending during the second quarter of the year, a sign that banking industry experts claim is due to a tightening of lending criteria and less demand from the ...

National Bank of Canada attributed its 5.5 per cent jump in fiscal third-quarter profit to its acquisition of Cambodia’s Advanced Bank of Asia Ltd. (ABA Bank) earlier this year. ...

Cambodian financial institutions surveyed yesterday said they were in compliance with the central bank’s revised liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) requirements as the deadline passed to increase their cash and highly liquid assets to weather any internal or external shocks. ...

While Cambodia’s Moody’s rating is still at the same B2 level as last year, its economic growth has been downgraded two points from 2015, with the international credit rating agency warning that the Kingdom’s rapid pace of credit growth could pose financial stability risks. “The pace ...

Cambodia’s microfinance sector continued to expand rapidly during the first half of the year, despite concerns over rising default rates as the industry’s main borrowers – provincial farmers – struggle to repay their loans after successive seasons of drought and poor harvests. ...

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US government’s development financial institution, signed a commitment letter for $125 million direct loan to Acleda Bank to support all sectors through microenterprises and small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), Acleda Bank said in a press release yesterday. ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) officially began receiving applications for liquidity providers yesterday as part of an initiative to boost market liquidity, it said in a press release. ...

Current assets in Cambodia’s banking and financial institutions had risen to 25.6 billion U.S. dollars by June 2016, an increase of 21.3 percent in the last 12 months, according to the biannual report of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), or the central bank, on ...

With the deadline for a second review by a global task force of the government’s efforts to combat money laundering and terrorism financing fast approaching, the Kingdom’s central bank yesterday conducted a workshop with banks, financial institutions and state agencies to flesh out a strategy ...

South Korean financial giant Woori Bank, widely seen as the preferred bidder for a 50 per cent stake in Cambodian microlender Prasac, is out of the running as it was not presented to the central bank as an official bidder, local banking officials have said. ...

Cambodia’s credit bureau is looking to leverage the resources and experience of US-based Equifax, one of the three biggest American credit report agencies, to expand its credit analysis capabilities and introduce new products to the local market, its chief executive officer said yesterday. ...

The National Bank of Cambodia released its annual report yesterday, citing strong growth in 2015 despite challenging economic circumstances caused by a Chinese economic slowdown, increased regional competitiveness and the appreciation of the US dollar. ...

Insurance sales have grown by 37 percent in the first half of the year, totaling $56 million, the Insurance Association of Cambodia (IAC) announced in a report Tuesday.  The increase, up from $40.9 million for the same period last year, has been driven by a ...

Cambodia has been listed as the highest-risk nation in ASEAN, and ranks sixth globally, for its susceptibility to money laundering and terrorism financing in a recently released global index that charts the vulnerability of 149 nations. ...