Kim Kwang-soo, chairman of the Republic of Korea-based Nonghyup Financial Group (NHFG), has proposed to support Agribank in its equitisation.

Transactions at an Agribank office (Photo: Agribank )

The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) is preparing for equitisation in line with the Prime Minister’s decision. 

The bank accounts for 50 percent of the rural credit market in Vietnam with more than 43 billion USD worth of outstanding loans in 2018. It has 938 branches and 1,297 transaction offices along with 62 mobile banks and 2,845 automated teller machines (ATM) in addition to 46 Autobank and 20,781 point of sale (POS) locations nationwide.

Last year, it reached the highest-ever profit, at 330 million USD, exceeding the yearly target by 32 percent. 

Recently, Moody’s Investors Service has assigned first-time Ba3 deposit and issuer ratings to Agribank for its “significant progress in cleaning up legacy problem assets in the last five years, with material improvements in the second half of 2018”.

NHFG, the fourth biggest financial institution in the Republic of Korea, operates mainly in banking, investment, and insurance. It consists of seven subsidiaries, including the agricultural Nonghyup Bank, which launched a representative office in Hanoi in 2013 and another in HCM City in November 2018. Its Hanoi branch was inaugurated in 2016.-VNA