First finance leasing JV licensed in Vietnam

According to a statement issued on April 17 by BIDV, the joint venture between BIDV Financial Leasing Company (BLC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SMTB) has total chartered capital of VND895.6 billion (US$39.5 million), with the former holding 51% and the latter the remaining 49%.

BIDV set up a strategic partnership with SMTB in 2013 to carry out business, training and technology transfer projects.

BSL is the nation’s first finance leasing joint venture between a domestic commercial bank and a foreign financial institution.

​SMTB is Japan’s largest trust bank with total assets of some 59,500 billion yen (about US$585.4 billion) and equity of over 2,000 billion yen (about US$20 billion). With over 90 years of operation, SMTB has 132 branches and 17 offices in Japan, and nine branches and representative offices in foreign countries such as the UK, the U.S., Singapore, China, the Republic of Korea and Indonesia.

BIDV is active in fields such as banking, insurance, securities and financial investment with nearly nine million customers. It has total assets of more than VND1 trillion (US$50 billion) and is among the top 30 ASEAN banks and top 500 global banks.