Banking and financial services

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors last week approved US$40 million in emergency finance support for small and medium-sized businesses in Laos to help them recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank said in a press release. The funding will be channelled ...

The UK Government and the Bank of Thailand (BoT) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), forming a strategic partnership on financial services to support Thailand’s inclusive economic recovery and green growth in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the MoU signed on 7 ...

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has announced it is preparing to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC). NBC’s director-general, Chea Serey, said the central bank was developing “the national payment gateway for Cambodia.” It would serve as a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer platform with its own specially designed cryptocurrency. According ...

Veerathai Santiprabhob, governor of the Bank of Thailand, and his Myanmar counterpart U Kyaw Kyaw Maung, signed two memoranda of understanding (MoU) on October 18 during the IMF-World Bank meeting in the US. The signing was witnessed by Myanmar’s Minister for Planning and Finance U Soe ...

Green credit is a trend in the global banking and finance industry and more Vietnamese banks are following suit. The State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV)’s latest survey of credit institutions (CIs) in the field of green growth and green credit released recently showed that the ...

The industrial sector in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam contributed 32.3 per cent of the region’s GDP in 2017 and provided an estimated 20 per cent of the employment, said the IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank. It said that industrial zones provide ...

Alterna Bank is proud to sponsor the 13th annual Mekong Business Challenge in Cambodia, bringing together the brightest university teams to showcase how their innovation can transform lives. The Challenge is a platform for developing youth talent and for launching businesses and social ventures that will profoundly ...

CIMB Group Holdings has become a member of the United Nations’ (UN) Environment Programme Finance Initiative Principles for Responsible Banking (UNEP-FI), making it the only banking group in Asean to be a founding member of the sustainable initiative. Keep reading ...

The change in the new roadmap for Financial Inclusion Roadmap (2018-2022) will involve creating a digital services working group managed by Central Bank and Financial Regulatory Department (FRD), U Zaw Naing, FRD director general, told The Myanmar Times. Keep reading ...

Thailand ranks seventh out of 10 Asian countries in a Taiwanese consulting firm’s FinTech Competitiveness Index. The country, however, outperforms Malaysia and only lags behind Singapore in terms of regulatory advancement. Keep reading    ...