This investment deal brings the owner’s capital of VPBank to approximately VND 140 trillion, making it the second-highest in Vietnam’s banking system.
Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank , HoSE: VPB) held a signing ceremony on March 27th to issue a private placement of 15% of its charter capital to SMBC Bank of Japan (under the financial group SMFG). This agreement officially made SMBC Group a strategic investor in VPBank.
This investment will bring VPBank VND 35.9 trillion in Tier 1 capital, raising its total owner’s capital from VND 103.5 trillion to approximately VND 140 trillion.
This investment deal is part of VPBank’s capital increase plan that has been implemented since 2022 to strengthen its long-term financial capacity and help the bank achieve its strategic growth goals in the next five years.
Additionally, the investment agreement signed between the two parties demonstrated the close cooperation between VPBank and SMBC. Earlier in May 2022, the two parties signed a business cooperation agreement. In late 2021, SMBC Consumer Finance Company (a subsidiary of SMFG) also acquired 49% of the shares in Fe Credit, a subsidiary of VPBank.
After this investment, VPBank will become the second-largest bank in Vietnam in terms of owner’s capital, following Vietcombank. This allows VPBank to have enough financial strength to meet the needs of customers in all strategic segments.
Under the agreement, SMBC will contribute to VPBank’s growth by sharing the secrets and experience that the group has accumulated over many years in the Asian market. The digital transformation process is also one of the factors expected to be accelerated after SMBC joins VPBank’s operations, bringing banking products and services developed to meet customers’ needs and behaviors.
This agreement is also expected to create attraction and encourage FDI investors, including more than 200,000 customers who are multinational corporations and large enterprises in the world of SMBC Group and SMBC Bank, to explore and expand investment in Vietnam. These groups may become VPBank’s potential customers in the future.
For SMBC, through a local bank like VPBank, it can also strengthen its presence and expand opportunities to provide capital for domestic investment projects, especially in areas such as infrastructure construction, business projects, etc.