Tim Charlton, editor-in-chief of the Asian Banking and Finance magazine, presents the Asian Banking & Finance Award for “Sustainability Initiative of the Year – Vietnam” to Trần Hòai Nam, deputy general director of HDBank at a ceremony in Singapore last week. — Photo courtesy of the bank

HCM CITY — HDBank has won the 2023 Asian Banking & Finance Award in the “Sustainability Initiative of the Year – Việt Nam” category.

Asian Banking and Finance, a leading financial magazine founded in 2008, gives away the Wholesale Banking Awards and Retail Banking Awards annually to honour banks and financial institutions by region and country for their outstanding performance, innovation and excellence.

This year, besides HDBank, big names in the region and Việt Nam such as CIMB, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Vietinbank were also among the winners.

HDBank is the only bank in Việt Nam to win in this category.

The jury comprising experts from all the four largest international accounting and professional services firms in Singapore appreciated HDBank for meeting many stringent criteria in terms of financial indicators and ESG (environment, society and governance) and carrying out community activities.

The banking industry plays an important role in promoting the circular economy by offering financial products and services to individuals, households and businesses, and supporting business activities and investments that have a positive impact on the environment and society.

Recognising the importance of this, since 2018 HDBank has been implementing a number of measures to expand its resources for promoting the development of green finance, helping the Government meet its commitment of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Over recent years HDBank has received funding and comprehensive consultancy for sustainable development, green finance, green transformation, and, especially, development of financial products for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises from reputed international financial institutions such as IFC, DEG (a development financial institution owned by German state-owned development bank KFW), Proparco (the French Development Finance Institution), Leapfrog Investments, Asian Development Bank, and Affinity Equity.

HDBank is one of the pioneers in promoting sustainable development, green finance and green transformation, applying ESG standards in business activities to achieve long-term sustainable development and proactively carrying out CSR activities.

Going forward HDBank will continue to support SMEs and focus on incorporating sustainable development goals and ESG with its business development goals.— VNS