Vice President Đặng Thị Ngọc Thịnh gives away the Labour Medal to HDBank’s Board of Directors.

HCM CITY — The HCM City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank on Saturday (Jan 4) received the President’s Labour Medal for its “outstanding achievements in business and credit activities and corporate social responsibility”.

HDBank, as it is formally known, also won two other honours, the Emulation Flag of the Prime Minister and the Traditional Flag of HCM City People’s Committee.

Attending the awards ceremony were Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hoà Bình; Secretary of the HCM City Party Committee Nguyễn Thiện Nhân; Vice President Đặng Thị Ngọc Thịnh; leaders of central and local agencies; HDBank’s customers and strategic partners; and the bank’s past and present employees.

Over the years HDBank has won a number of honours, including the Labour Medal, second class (twice) and third class (thrice), and the Government’s Emulation Flag several times.

Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hoà Bình confers the Government’s Emulation Flag on HDBank.

Speaking at the ceremony, Nhân hailed the lender’s positive contributions to the city’s socio-economic development in recent years.

HDBank had shown its corporate social responsibility by donating health insurance cards to 24,000 near-poor households, funding cataract surgeries for 12,000 poor people and gifting more than 100 Houses of Love to those in need, he said.

It had also awarded 2,000 scholarships to poor children in mountainous provinces and built bridges for poor people in Mekong Delta provinces, he said.

Nhân said HDBank should aim to ultimately become a “happy development bank” to improve the happiness of all of its employees, customers and society as a whole.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Thảo, permanent vice chairwoman of HDBank, said with its orientation towards strong and sustainable growth and effective risk management, HDBank has maintained the best asset quality in the banking sector after 30 years of development.

Nguyễn Thiện Nhân, secretary of the HCM City Party Committee, speaks at the ceremony held to award the President’s Labour Medal to HDBank.

The year also marks the 30th anniversary of the bank’s founding.

HDBank is one of 10 Vietnamese banks named among the 500 biggest banks in the Southeast Asian region by AsiaBanker, the first bank in Việt Nam to receive the “Green Deal Award” from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), among Forbes’ 40 most prestigious brands in Việt Nam, and the winner of the Best Companies to Work For in Asia award from HR Asia for two consecutive years.

Established in 1990 as the HCM City Housing Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank, the bank had a starting capital of VNĐ3 billion, assets of VNĐ20 billion and 17 employees.

The bank changed its name to HDBank in 2011. — VNS