At the cooperation agreement signing ceremony between HDBank and IFC. — Photo courtesy of HDBank

HDBank and the International Finance Corporation have signed an agreement under which the latter will provide consultancy for the lender to expand its supply chain financing, which will serve as a basis for upgrading and expanding its value chain financing platform.

This is one of the key projects in HDBank's development strategy for 2021-25.

Under the agreement, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, will help HDBank analyse its potential portfolio and orient specialised financing product lines to improve its existing supply chain financing (SCF), grow its financing scale and train a team of experts in the field.

With more than 3,600 firms involved in the supply chain of 50 "core" enterprises in seven potential financing fields at HDBank, expanding the value chain is one of the most important strategic initiatives in the bank’s overall strategy in 2021-25, which also includes digitising customer journeys through a transaction banking/fintech platform, improving the consulting capacity of the leadership team and adopting the best domestic and international best practices.

Its SCF reached nearly VNĐ20 trillion (US$854.36 million) by the end of last year, with an annual growth rate of more than 35 per cent , and has been linked with many global value chains.

In May last year, in Washington DC, HDBank and IFC signed a memorandum of understanding to help Vietnamese small and medium businesses access innovative funding, enabling them to better take part in global supply chains.

This collaboration is an important step to help HDBank realise its goal of building an SCF portfolio of $3 billion with 8,000 businesses, developing the SCF strategy for the agricultural sector, broadening its SCF products - especially supplier and distributor financing - and bringing on board anchor firms along with their suppliers and distributors.

The cooperation agreement is the next step in expanding SCF models and strengthening cooperation with corporate customers in the value chain, while demonstrating HDBank's efforts to further develop and diversify its core business activities as a leading commercial bank. — VNS