First Banking subsidiary in Vietnam
Woori Bank announced on August 2 that its application to establish a subsidiary in Vietnam has received preliminary approval from the country’s central bank.
Woori Bank has been operating two branches in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. With the preliminary approval, the bank will make full-scale efforts to increase sales in Vietnam.
Once the subsidiary is established in Hanoi around October this year, the bank plans to diversify channels and products, making aggressive sales efforts to become one of the top foreign banks in Vietnam early on.
In addition, it will open three branches more this year following the establishment of the subsidy and then add five to seven branches annually to expand its network to 20 branches in a short period.
In particular, the bank will establish a competitive product line up for the subsidiary in Vietnam to strengthen retail sales. It is also working with Woori Card to enter the Vietnamese credit card market in the first half of 2017. Furthermore, in order to expand the base of local customers, it plans to connect various deposit and loan products including mortgage, credit loan for good customers and bancassurance, offering comprehensive financial services. Besides, it will further expand its mobile banking platform Wibee Bank.
Meanwhile, the bank will complete investment in the Wealth Development Bank in Philippines in the second half of this year and make an aggressive effort to expand retail sales in the nation. It is also pushing ahead with a plan to enter Europe and Central and South America. With the vision of joining Asia’s top 10 and global top 50 financial institutions, it will continuously expand its overseas networks to increase the proportion of global profit and loss to 30 percent.