HÀ NỘI — The US Federal Reserve Board announced on its website early this week that it had approved the application by Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Việt Nam (Vietcombank) to establish an office in New York City.

According to the Federal Reserve Board’s order, the representative office would act as a liaison with Vietcombank’s clients and prospective clients in the US. The office would also engage in other representational activities such as providing analysis of the banking sector and financial services market, acting as a liaison with banks in the US and participating in business conferences.

Vietcombank wrote on its website that this strategic step made it the first joint stock commercial bank of Việt Nam approved to open a representative office in the US – the country with the most transparent legal framework and rigorous supervision in the world.

Vietcombank’s target is to become one of the world’s top 300 financial and banking groups and to be managed following the best international practices by 2020.

It now has more than 500 branches, dealing offices and representative offices. Foreign operations include a representative office in Singapore, a finance company subsidiary in Hong Kong, and a US money transmitter subsidiary, VCB Money Inc., in Garden Grove, California. The bank opened Vietcombank Laos in Vientiane in late October.

The bank said that it would submit all the necessary documents to open the New York office as soon as possible.

With total assets of US$43.6 billion, Vietcombank is the fourth largest bank in Việt Nam by assets. It provides retail and commercial banking services to individuals, corporations and financial institutions, including international trade finance, foreign exchange and fixed-income trading, lending, project finance, money transfers and correspondent banking services. The bank operates four domestic subsidiaries that engage in securities activities, financial services, office leasing and remittance activities.

The US has been a major trade partner of Việt Nam with two-way trade reaching $50.8 billion in 2017, according to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Updates of the General Statistics Office showed that the US was Việt Nam’s largest export market from January to October, with revenues of $39 billion, 12.8 per cent higher than the same period last year.

Việt Nam has also become an attractive destination for US investors. — VNS