Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank has been presented with two prestigious awards by the Asian Banking and Finance Magazine (ABF), including “Best Project Financing Bank 2018” and “Financial Inclusion Initiative 2018”. The Bank has  been honored by ABF in many awards categories for many consecutive years, including Best Project Financing Bank, Best Trade Finance Bank, Best SMEs Bank, Mortgage Loan of the Year, Car Loan of the Year and Credit Card Initiative of the Year.

As one of Asia’s leading financial magazines, Asian Banking and Finance magazine was founded in 2008. With its leading position and reputation, ABF organizes retail bank awards and wholesale banking awards annually for banks with outstanding performance regionally and nationally.

The judging panel, which includes many well-known financial and banking experts from South East Asia (mostly from BIG4 on auditing, financial consulting) gave SHB high recognition based on strict criteria such as indicators and information on policy, capacity, project financing scale, activities, solutions; indicators and information on financial initiatives that enhance accessibility to financial services of the unbanked and underbanked.

In terms of project financing, on account of its tremendous experiences in energy efficiency projects, SHB has been selected as the lending bank for two projects, which are “Smart Grid – Transmission Efficiency” (Phase 1) and “Efficient Power Grids in Small and Medium-Sized Cities” (Phase 1 and Phase 2) which are financed by the German Government through KfW with total financing value of EUR 65 million and EUR 350 million, respectively.

The two projects aim to expanding and developing the transmission grid, reducing overload of the national grid, satisfying current power demand, and improving the safety, reliability and quality of the national power transmission system. The focus of “Efficient Power Grids in Small and Medium-Sized Cities” project is to upgrade, modernize and expand distribution and transmission networks in the Northern, Central and Southern of Vietnam under the distribution scope of the Northern, Central and Southern Power Corporations, especially in remote districts and towns to promote sustainable business development and improve livelihood of local residents. On the other hand, the “Smart Grid – Transmission Efficiency” project aims to provide more stable, sustainable and cost effective power supply in the context of increasing power demand in the development process and contribute to building capacity to implement the National Green Growth Strategy in renewable energy sector.

In Financial Inclusion Initiative award category, SHB’s “Financial solutions for production and business” targeting household businesses received great attention from the judging panel.

In recent years, with the orientation of shifting credit structure towards business loan as top priority, SHB has focused on improving and developing various financial solutions to fully and timely meet the capital demand of customers, especially in priority sectors (agriculture, rural areas, export, supporting industries, SMEs, hi-tech enterprises). Understanding the importance and potential of these segments, SHB has set a target to become one of the leading banks on business loans. In order to realize this goal, SHB has launched various business loan packages with diverse and attractive features.

With these outstanding advantages, the financial solutions for production and business for retail customers of SHB had achieved sustainable growth in 2017. This creates a firm ground for SHB to continue providing its comprehensive services to business customers, which are considered a potential market in the current context of economic development.

Besides these two awards, SHB has been honored by many domestic and international organizations with prestigious awards such as Best Retail Bank Vietnam and Best Trade Finance Bank Vietnam 2018 by the AlphaSea Magazine, Best Bank Vietnam 2018 by Global Finance Magazine, STP Award 2018 by Bank of New York Mellon, Top 10 Prestigious Commercial Joint Stock Banks 2018 by Vietnam Report, Certificate of Merit by the Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, etc. SHB’s success in winning these awards once again confirms the trust of customers, shareholders and partners as well as the recognition of regulators and prestigious organizations for SHB.