Banking and financial services

Cambodia’s banking sector has continued enjoying robust growth in both loans and deposits this year, Ouk Maly, vice-governor of the National Bank of Cambodia, said Wednesday. ...

The total amount of loans in Cambodia’s banking sector could rise to $30 billion by 2020, according to a report released today by Mekong Strategic Partners, a new investment and advisory fund. Amid such growth, banks will be challenged to drastically expand their operations and will ...

Sri Lanka’s Lanka Orix Leasing Company acquired a 60 percent stake in Thaneakea Phum Cambodia (TPC) a microfinance company in Cambodia, for 20.3 million US dollars, identifying the immense potential in emerging economies of the South East Asian region the company said in a media ...

Local stock brokerage company Sonatra Securities has announced it will completely dilute its books and put a halt on all business activities from October 1. In a press release posted on Sonatra’s website last week, the firm stated without an explanation that it was suspending all ...

Businesses registered in Cambodia have until the end of the month to pay their annual property tax to the country’s General Department of Taxation (GDT). According to the GDT, business owners must pay by September 30 to avoid being fined. ...

Last month, Cambodia’s nascent yet rapidly expanding banking sector saw the new arrival of Phillip Bank through the acquisition of Hwang DBS Commercial Bank by Singapore’s Philip Capital in a $40 million deal. The number of banks in the country has more than doubled since 2005, ...

A lack of innovation has contributed to Cambodia dropping seven spots on the World Economic Forum’s 2014-15 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR), which was released on Wednesday. The Kingdom ranked 95th out of 144 countries, down from 88th in the previous report, according to the GCR. Apart ...

Cambodia is the third most at-risk country to money laundering and terrorist financing in the world, according to a global index released last month, trailing only Iran and Afghanistan. The Anti-Money Laundering Index, first published by the Swiss-based Basel Institute on Governance in 2012, assigns the ...

Cambodia has launched its first large-scale paddy rice bank to ensure uninterrupted supplies to millers and exporters, according to local sources. Thaneakea Srov (Kampuchea) Plc is the rice bank that aims at supporting the local rice industry by way of purchasing, storing and drying rice, as well as ...

The Singapore-based Phillip Capital Group has purchased a Malaysian-owned Hwang-DBS Commercial Bank in Cambodia for 40 million U.S. dollars and rebranded it as Phillip Bank on Thursday, a bank’s chief said. Phillip Bank’s chairman Lim Hua Min said the Phillip Capital Group, which is an Asian ...

ANZ has ruled out helping hundreds of poor Cambodian families forcibly evicted from their land to make way for sugar-cane plantations that involved child labour and led to food shortages. Fairfax Media this year revealed confidential audits that disclosed that ANZ’s Cambodian subsidiary, ANZ Royal Bank, ...

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has sold its 12.25 percent stake in Acleda bank to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in an undisclosed amount after having supported Acleda for over 15 years, said an IFC news statement ...

About 100 villagers who lost land to a sugarcane plantation, which was until recently financed by ANZ Royal Bank, traveled to Phnom Penh to protest in front of the bank’s headquarters Thursday, but failed to convince the bank to help them. Several hundred families in Kompong ...

Cambodia’s credit sector is expanding rapidly with the central bank saying now is the time to start infusing the market with riel and begin a process of de-dollarization in the country’s economy. But as the growth of dollarized loans outstrips those in riel, disbursing credit ...

ANZ is facing calls for compensation over its funding of a Cambodian sugar mill linked to child labour, forced evictions and land grabs. Media reports on Monday said hundreds of Cambodian farmers had called on the bank to provide compensation for the land they lost due ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday applauded the recent creation of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), saying it could ease Cambodia’s dependence on institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). BRICS member nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa announced ...

Finance Minister Aun Porn Moniroth has sent the National Bank of Cambodia an order to freeze the bank accounts of four business tycoons for allegedly failing to make good on a number of deals with the state, according to a ministry official and local media. The ...

Cambodia’s banking sector has reported a 9.3-percent increase in lending in the first six months of the year, according to the figures from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Sunday. The figures showed that the kingdom’s 35 commercial banks had lent a total of 8.09 ...

Microfinance deposits are on the rise, a positive trend that the industry says is moving the country towards a reduced dependency on foreign funding and that will eventually lead to greater control over interest rates. The seven microfinance institutions licensed to take deposits collected $209 million ...

The National Bank of Cambodia on Wednesday hosted its first annual macroeconomic conference, outlining the need to ensure Cambodia’s rapidly growing financial sector supports sustainable and inclusive economic growth while managing greater risks. Cambodia’s banking and microfinance sectors have seen enormous growth in recent years with ...

Cambodia’s business community is anticipating keen interest from overseas investors as registration for the country’s international investment conference opens this week. The International Business Chamber (IBC) of Cambodia investment conference will take place on October 6th and 7th at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh. The ...

From the finance to the education sector, the interest from companies looking to list on Cambodia’s nascent stock exchange is on the rise, a CSX official said yesterday, after a meeting with some of the Kingdom’s largest firms. Some 30 companies, the CSX say, are eyeing ...

Early this month, in what looks like a failed attempt to save its reputation, Australia‘s ANZ Bank severed its ties with Phnom Penh Sugar, a company accused of a range of human rights abuses linked to its plantations in Kampong Speu province, Cambodia. The move ...

Two of Cambodia’s largest financial service providers have reported declines in transactions stemming from key Thai border provinces as thousands of undocumented migrant workers continue to exit the neighbouring country. Third-party payments and remittance service Wing has seen a 3 per cent decline in the amount ...