Banking and financial services

As rising economic growth spurred demand for personal loans, Prasac, Cambodia’s biggest microfinance institution (MFI), provided $106 million in loans between March, 2012 and March, 2013, an increase of 66 per cent compared with the corresponding period a year earlier.  “Loans [were] mainly used for service ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a draft law amending three articles in the law on anti-money laundering and the financing of terrorism in order to make Cambodia more investment-friendly. Last month, the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), law enforcement officials ...

If you’ve applied for a mortgage recently, you know how hard it can be. The bank demands all kinds of obscure documents and wants proof of almost every asset you own. But an innovative mortgage program halfway around the world will evaluate your application without ...

Acleda Bank PLC plans to launch internet banking services in September, the bank’s president and CEO, In Channy, said yesterday. Internet banking will be available to customers in Cambodia and abroad, Mr. Channy said. The system Acleda chose, he said, is used by many leading ...

Cambodia’s financial system appears to be shifting to excessive credit growth. The credit-to-GDP ratio has reached 37 percent, well above the low-income economies (LTCs). If credit growth were to continue at the current pace, by mid-2013 the ratio would exceed even the median for more ...

Access to finance could reduce violence, empower the most vulnerable in society and improve the livelihoods of Cambodia’s poorest people, a conference on community-led funding heard on Wednesday. Sarah Sitts, country manager of the international NGO Pact, introduced the funding model of savings-led micro-finance (SLMF). In ...

Taiwan Cooperative Bank, one of the leading banks in China’s Taiwan, officially commenced business in capital Phnom Penh on Thursday, bringing the number of commercial banks in the kingdom to 33. Taiwan Cooperative Bank is the 2nd bank from China’s Taiwan in Cambodia after the Mega ...

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 ...