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Weekly Lists
September 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
bne:Banker
IIB eyes “significant” number of potential projects in Vietnam
The International Investment Bank (IIB) and Vietnamese officials have identified a “significant amount” of possible projects for implementa- tion in the Southeast Asian country, a statement from the Moscow- based multilateral development bank said on September 11.
The news was announced after a trilateral working meeting be- tween Nguyen Van Binh, a member of the Vietnamese Politburo and Secretary of the country’s Central Committee, chairman of the IIB’s board Nikolay Kosov and chairman of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC), Denis Ivanov.
Potential projects in Vietnam include those with an integration ef- fect, namely those that include other shareholder countries of the IIB. “In addition, a need for more active action in the region was underlined, especially in the field of trade finance and securities operations,” the bank’s statement said.
A report by the Wall Street Journal claimed on September 7 that the investigation into money laundering at the Estonian branch of Denmark’s biggest lender Danske Bank covered $150bn (€130bn) worth of transactions.
The newspaper’s report is yet another in a series showing the scale of illicit money flows at the bank’s small Estonian branch was larger than originally suspected. Danske Bank is carrying out an internal investigation into inadequate monitoring of money it handled between 2007 and 2015, with results expected to be made public this month.
The Financial Times reported in early September that Danske Bank could have handled up to $30bn of non-resident money – mostly from Russia and other former Soviet republics – in 2013 alone.
Fitch Ratings stated in a new report released this week that Uz- bekistan’s four state-owned banks - UPSB, Asaka, MCB and Agro
- remain stable, with their Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) underpinned by sovereign support.
The stability is reflected in the authorities having a high propensity to provide support due to the state's majority ownership, the banks' systemic importance and the “tight supervision of their activities and their policy roles”, Fitch said. The state's ability to provide support is based on the Uzbek economy's resilience to the regional downturn in 2015-2016 as well as international reserves equalling $27bn as of end-1H18.
Danske Bank
money laundering investigation to cover $150bn of transactions
Fitch says four state- owned Uzbek banks stable due to state support