Vietnam’s Sacombank and Phuong Nam (Southern Bank) will merge. The regulator, the State Bank of Vietnam, has given the approval for the merger. The merged bank will retain the name of Sacombank and the merger will enable the partly private lender to enter the list of the top five largest Vietnamese banks by assets, with the total asset of nearly VND290.9 trillion ($13 billion). The other four major banks in Vietnam are Agribank, Vietcombank, VietinBank, and BIDV. Sacombank and Southern Bank, both based in Ho Chi Minh City, had earlier received approval from their shareholders for the merger, which was put under consideration in March 2014. The merger complies with the SBV’s restructuring of the banking sector, which is intended to bring stronger, safer and more professional financial entities to the market.
