Banking and financial services
Micro-finance
Yangon’s extreme poverty needs action: report
In a one-room hut in north Yangon, a middle-aged woman has a trick for those evenings when the children complain of hunger and she has run out of money and rice. “I ask them to drink extra water and go to bed,” said mother-of-seven Daw ...
Central bank of Vietnam: restructuring of banks needs legal framework
Vietnam will step up the restructuring of the banking sector this year but this process will require certain regulations to be revised to create a favorable legal framework, the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam said. Le Minh Hung said at a VietinBank 2017 ...
Crisis relief measures hammered out
The government has teamed up with construction material and consumer product companies to offer special discounts to flood victims in the southern provinces. Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, permanent secretary for commerce, said the traders agreed to the discounts following talks with the Commerce Ministry. The reductions will ...
As catch and sales fall, Myanmar’s fishermen sink into debt
On a recent afternoon, the beach at Jatetaw village was bustling with fishermen hauling their boats a shore and off loading the catch. Local women carried the fish off in bamboo baskets and laid them out to dry in the sun, after which they would ...
Decline in transfers linked to rice prices
International fund transfers to Cambodia through Acleda Bank, which claims to handle a quarter of all inbound fund transfers to the country, decreased slightly last year as a result of lower rice prices, a bank executive said on January 8. In Channy, president and group ...
Rice infrastructure bids sought
The Rural Development Bank has called for expressions of interest to develop and operate a 200,000 ton rice warehouse and a rice paddy drying facility. The drying facility would have the capacity to process 3,000 tons per day. The government is seeking to finance additional agricultural ...
GH Bank to offer loans for cheap homes
GH Bank plans to offer mortgages for homes priced below 1 million baht next year as part of its effort to encourage those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder to have their own homes. At least 4,000 potential homeowners across the country are ...
Central bank orders lenders to step up lending in riel
Cambodian microfinance institutions have said they would comply with a new regulation issued by the central bank that requires them to hold at least 10 percent of their loan portfolio in the Kingdom’s national currency. A prakas published by the National Bank of Cambodia on ...
Thai banks bullish on Vietnam even if Trump scraps TPP
Thai banks in Vietnam believe a large labour force and low wages will still be magnets for trade and foreign direct investment in that country even if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is scrapped in line with US President-elect Donald Trump’s policy. Vietnam is among the 12 Pacific ...
Bank Negara Malaysia dealing with short-term volatility of the ringgit
A slew of measures undertaken by Bank Negara Malaysia are expected to help enhance a continuous supply of foreign currency. To discourage the trading of non-deliverable forwards offshore, the central bank has announced several initiatives to liberalise and deregulate the onshore ringgit-hedging market. They include providing ...
