Tag: SeABank

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – OPEC Fund, the intergovernmental development finance institution established by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has announced that will be granting a US$35m loan to local bank Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) to facilitate access to finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and women-owned businesses.

Said loan complements a US$80m loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as a US$20m trade limit and a US$85m IFC-arranged syndicated loan from international lenders.

SMEs account for 98% of all enterprises and 50% of employment in Vietnam and are the backbone of the country’s economy. Women-owned businesses have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to reduced access to financial services and business interruptions resulting from obligations such as childcare during lockdowns.

OPEC Fund Director-General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa said, “We are pleased to partner with SeABank and join forces with international lenders to provide financing to support Vietnam’s sustainable economic growth. Increasing access to finance for SMEs, especially women-owned businesses, will help reduce inequalities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Meanwhile, Le Thu Thuy, general director at SeABank, commented, “Supporting SMEs and women-owned enterprises has always been a priority of SeABank’s development strategy and remains our responsibility as these enterprises are facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

She added, “SeABank is honoured to have won the trust and financial support of the OPEC Fund, a respected multilateral development finance institution. This illustrates SeABank’s reputation and ability to access international capital. The OPEC Fund’s financing will enhance SeABank’s capacity to support the development of women-owned businesses as well as develop gender-smart actions.”

Vietnam has continued to ramp up efforts to finance its growing SME population, including the Asian Development Bank signing a US$25m loan to TPBank.

Hanoi, Vietnam – The Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank, also known as SeABank, has tapped cloud services provider Google Cloud to enhance the service quality and customer experiences delivered on its SeAMobile/SeANet digital banking platform. 

Through Google Cloud’s enterprise-grade technologies, SeABank can optimize costs, strengthen security and accelerate innovation. In addition, SeABank will use Google Cloud’s secure, flexible and scalable infrastructure solutions, such as Migrate for Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine, to migrate critical workloads from its on-premises data center to the cloud and build and deploy cloud-native applications. 

More importantly, SeABank will lean on Google Cloud’s capabilities in AI, machine learning and data analytics to acquire better understanding of its customers and create valuable new services to meet their future needs.

Le Thu Thuy, general director at SeABank, said, “The cooperation with Google Cloud is one of the crucial steps taken by SeABank to leverage industry-leading infrastructure and AI capabilities at speed and scale, to optimize our capacity to deploy customer-centric products and services, and enhance the overall digital and mobile banking experience.”

Having integrated AI into digital banking services on SeAMobile, as well as across its IT systems for customer service, operations, financial management and risk management, the core pillars of SeABank’s digital transformation strategy for the next five years will include end-to-end digitalization and providing hyper personalized customer experiences.

Meanwhile, Ruma Balasubramanian, managing director for Southeast Asia at Google Cloud, commented, “SeABank’s choice of Google Cloud as its primary cloud provider reinforces the Bank’s commitment toward using technology to advance how it interacts with and serves its customers – from anywhere and at any time. The bank can now amplify its abilities to build new capabilities and services, quickly deliver a predictive customer experience, and leapfrog into becoming the bank of the future.”

Hanoi, Vietnam – In response to the pandemic and its economic effects, International Finance Corporation (IFC), the sister organization of the World Bank focused on the private sector in emerging markets, has partnered with Vietnam’s international trade financing company, Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank), extending a US$40m loan to support businesses in Vietnam make a resilient recovery.

In the first phase of an up to US$150m financing package, the partnership aims to expand lending to local SMEs, especially women-owned businesses (WSMEs), increase access to climate finance, and boost international trade opportunities. 

The funding package will comprise up to US$80m from IFC’s own account and $50m to be mobilized from international lenders, in addition to a US$20m trade finance line. While the investment aims to increase SeABank’s SME lending portfolio, at least US$20m will be earmarked for WSMEs, with support from the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi). 

With a strategy to expand its reach to WSMEs, IFC’s funding will help the bank triple its current WSME lending, accounting for about 25% of its total SME portfolio by 2024. IFC will also be advising the bank to develop a banking on women strategy to help bridge the US$4.9b financing gap of WSMEs, accounting for more than one-fifth of the SME financing gap in the country. The bank will further support green building and energy efficiency projects, which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

SeABank’s General Director Le Thu Thuy noted that IFC’s long-term financing and technical advice will enable SeABank to focus on two strategic segments—WSMEs and climate financing—and position itself as a bank of choice for women-owned businesses and climate-friendly projects over the next five years.

“Given the pandemic, IFC’s timely investment also allows us to extend support to more businesses at a critical time while contributing to the stability of Vietnam’s overall financial market,” said Thuy.

Meanwhile, Kyle Kelhofer, the country manager of IFC Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lao PDR, shared that IFC’s new partnership with SeABank reaffirms IFC’s commitment to supporting the continued development of a strong financial sector in Vietnam.

“Our investment in SeABank reiterates our confidence in the bank and its strategic direction to increase financing for SMEs and climate investments, furthering green and inclusive growth, and helping Vietnam build back better from the COVID pandemic,” said Kelhofer.

Furthermore, IFC will be helping SeABank to support the country’s climate finance needs with US$30m to be allocated for climate-friendly projects. IFC’s support will also be expected to help SeABank build a US$60m climate-finance portfolio by 2024.

IFC’s US$20m trade guarantee line under its Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) will boost SeABank’s capacity to provide financing for importers and exporters to minimize trade disruption given the ongoing pandemic. Participation in GTFP will enable SeABank to join a network of more than 500 bank partners in nearly 100 emerging-market countries.