SHB gets approval in principle from the central bank to merge with finance company VVF. — Photo vtc.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The State Bank of Viet Nam this week approved in principle a plan to merge the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and the Vinaconex-Viettel Finance JSC (VVF).

SHB released the information, according to which the central bank also ratified SHB's plan to set up a new subsidiary, which will be called SHB Finance with charter capital of VND1 trillion (US$44.64 million) and will operate in consumer credit.

Following the merger, SHB's charter capital will increase to more than VND10.485 trillion.

SHB said under the Cicular 6812/NHNN-TTGSNH, the central bank also asked SHB and VVF to complete their merger in line with SBV's regulations and submit a report on the merger to the SBV governor for official approval.

The planned merger was approved earlier by SHB and VVF shareholders at their annual general shareholders meetings last year.

SHB Finance will initially provide consumer credit services for individual customers that have annual income from VND150 million to VND200 million, later easing the market share to other individual customers with lower income.

Once SHB Finance is established, SHB will also transfer all its customer lists of individual borrowers with annual income of less than VND200 million to SHB Finance.

According to SBV's statistics, Viet Nam had 16 financial companies till the end of the last year. — VNS