State bank governor approves Habubank and SHB merge

The governor of the State Bank of Vietnam has given approval in principle to the merger of Habubank and SHBank.

Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Nguyen Van Binh, has given approval in principle to the merger of Hanoi Building Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Habubank) and Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB).

The two banks were asked to complete procedures on the merger for submission to the governor for approval.

The new bank will be named as Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Company, with a charter capital of nearly VND9 trillion (USD428.57 million) and total assests of over VND100 trillion (USD4.76 billion). It will have around 500,000 customers and 5,000 staff. After the merger, one share of Habubank will be equal to 0.75 an SHB share.

Governor Binh said recently that SBV will complete plans to restructure nine badly performing banks this month.

At the end of 2011, the First Joint Stock Commercial Bank (Ficombank), Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and Viet Nam Tin Nghia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TinNghiaBank) merged into one bank, marking the beginning of the bank merger plan in Vietnam.