[PHNOM PENH POST]
CAMBODIA’S financial industry will probably undergo much-needed
maturation, and possibly consolidation, now that two of China’s biggest
banks have entered the sector, insiders say.
Large-scale Chinese
investment has brought Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
and Bank of China to the Kingdom, but insiders have predicted they will
soon be competing with the 30 or so other commercial banks already doing
business here.
Cambodian banks had traditionally catered to
niche markets such as micro-finance and agricultural finance, a practice
that had limited their growth potential, National Bank of Cambodia
director- general and spokeswoman Nguon Sokha said yesterday.
But
as bigger, international banks such as ICBC and Bank of China eyed the
Kingdom, domestically owned banks would have to diversify, Nguon Sokha
said.
“They shouldn’t feel comfortable in their existing
framework. They should know the market is expanding, and they should
know the risks of remaining small,” she said.
Bank of China
entered the Cambodian market in May, while ICBC opened its first Phnom
Penh branch earlier this month. Chinese investment in Cambodia reached
US$694 million in 2010 and bilateral trade was expected to hit US$2
billion this year, the Post reported in October.
Although ICBC
was expected to focus on financing large development projects, the
company would not limit itself to loans that were often beyond the
lending limit of domestically owned banks, ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing
said at the bank’s launch on December 1.
“It will also extend its
financial service to traditionally advantageous local industries such
as grain and tourism,” he said in a speech.
“This will bring
banks such as ICBC into direct competit-ion with domestically owned
banks,” Nguon Sokha said, adding that ICBC – the world’s biggest bank by
market capitalisation – was interested in micro-finance and
agriculture.
Although the Chinese banks would diversify and lower
the cost of financial services in the Cambodian market, the resulting
increased competition might lead to consolidation among some of the
Kingdom’s smaller financials, she said.
The recent Chinese
entrants would not be the last big banks to come into the Cambodian
market, Phan Ying Tong, country head of Malaysian-owned Cambodian Public
Bank, said.
More international banks would follow, and the domestic sector must diversify or consolidate, he said.
“Banks
cannot remain status quo. They must change as competition increases,”
Phan Ying Tong told the Post in November. “The sooner, the better for
consolidation.”
Cambodia was over-banked, World Bank economist
Huot Chea said in a biannual review of the Cambodian economy last month.
The number of banks in Cambodia had increased rapidly in recent years,
but there were still few with large levels of capital, he said, adding
that he welcomed a strengthening of the sector.
Of about 30 commercial banks in Cambodia, 12 hold about 90 per cent of deposits, World Bank economists say.
Bank
of China and ICBC would bring new financial products and know-how to
Cambodia, and might inspire some restructuring within domestically owned
banks, Canadia Bank vice-president Dieter Billmeier said.
“This kind of competition is good for Cambodia, because it brings new ideas into the market,” he said.
Domestic
banks and ICBC will most likely compete directly in trade finance, but
Billmeier said he doubted the Chinese behemoth would push smaller banks
out of the market, given the upward trend in Cambodia’s trade growth.
Cambodia’s
financials had recently begun to diversify from traditional
collateral-based loans to new financial products and lending practices,
Billmeier said, noting that domestic innovation was already on an
upswing.
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