The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has proposed a total investment of 320 million USD in three Vietnamese banks, reported the Nikkei Asia.

The banks are the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB), and Oriental Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB).

IFC has proposed investing 120 million USD as a three-year senior, dollar-denominated loan in SHB to support the growth of SHB's SMEs loan portfolio, including women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises and those participating in supply chain finance.

The international lender is also weighing an investment of 100 million USD each in VIB and OCB to support the growth of housing portfolios, including affordable housing.

Established in 1993, SHB is a commercial bank operating in Vietnam with total assets of 22.5 billion USD as of June 30.

Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, VIB is a full-service commercial bank with 177 branches and transaction offices in 27 cities across Vietnam. Meanwhile, OCB had total assets of 8.1 billion USD as of September 30.

Most recently, IFC proposed extending a senior loan of up to 100 million USD to Hanoi-based Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank. The proposed loan, which has a tenor of up to five years and will come from IFC's own account, will be exclusively used to support the bank's housing portfolio./.VNA