Vietnam Construction Bank (CB) is expected to become a subsidiary of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) by the end of this year at the earliest, a top CB executive confirmed at a press briefing on Monday afternoon.

Dam Minh Duc, board member and general director at CB, told the press briefing that the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam has approved the acquisition.

He added that last year marked the first time that CB had received the green light from the State Bank of Vietnam, which is the central bank, for its business plan and that the lender had fulfilled its business targets since it was forced to restructure in 2015.

Duc revealed that the total deposit balance of CB surpassed VND20 trillion (US$857 million). Its net credit growth for corporate and retail loans both topped VND5 trillion ($214 million).

In March 2015, CB, whose previous name was VNCB, became a wholly state-owned bank, with comprehensive support provided by state-run Vietcombank.

Vietcombank assigned its vice-general director Nguyen Van Tuan to serve as CB board chairman, after the central bank bought the poorly-performing CB and restructured the latter.

At an annual general shareholder meeting of Vietcombank in April this year, Pham Quang Dung, board chairman of Vietcombank, divulged that the bank would receive the compulsory transfer of an ailing lender.

Acquiring an underperforming bank is both a responsibility and an opportunity for Vietcombank, Dung said.

Aside from Vietcombank, other banks in the country such as VPBank, MSB, and MB sought their shareholders’ nod for their plans to acquire weak credit institutions.

​ ​Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!