Banking and financial services

French bank BRED Banque Populaire – part of the second-largest banking group in France – will start commercial operations in Cambodia later this year, marking the first foray for a European bank in the Kingdom since the late 1990s, sources in the banking sector said ...

Australian banking giant ANZ has come under fire for its response to a scandal over its financing of a sugar plantation previously linked to forced evictions and child labour in Kampong Speu province. Titled Still Banking on Land Grabs, Oxfam’s Australia branch released a report on ...

“I bought my mobile phone for 8 million kips (about Bt34,500) by using First Choice because that facility enabled me to make the payment over 15 months,” a customer of the brand, Somkhith Chitdavongsor, said last week. It was the first time he had made a purchase ...

The state-run Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME Bank) has pushed back the application deadline for its 15-billion-baht policy loan scheme to the end of June after only a third of the money was taken out. Keep reading ...

The Bank of Thailand on 3 February unanimously resolved to maintain the policy rate at 1.50 per cent per annum. Keep reading ...

The Thai stock and bond markets are expected to witness new investment inflows in the short term following the Bank of Japan’s decisions on 29 January, said TMB research. “Expectations run high that other central banks in Asia including the People Bank of China and Bank ...

In what may be the biggest deal in Cambodia’s financial sector history, Thailand-based Bank of Ayudhya has reached an agreement to acquire the local microfinance institution (MFI) Hattha Kaksekar, with the deal expected to be valued at upwards of $140 million. In a statement released on ...

The Thai cabinet approved a budget of 52.82 billion baht on 26 January to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank seen as a rival to the US-led World Bank, government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. Keep reading ...

The Thai government’s megaproject investment is likely to use domestic lending sources in the initial phase with foreign lenders joining in the later stage, says the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Based on discussions with the Finance Ministry, Yasushi Negishi, the country director for the ADB’s Thailand ...

Though it’s extremely early days, experts this week welcomed Cambodia’s membership to the nascent China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, saying it would provide much-needed diversity of funding for the nation’s infrastructure and connectivity needs. Keep reading ...