Japan's Aeon Financial completes acquiring 100% stake in Vietnam financial firm PTF

The State Bank of Vietnam has given the nod to Aeon Financial, a member of Japanese retailer Aeon, to entirely acquire Post and Telecommunication Finance Company Limited (PTF), owned by private lender SeABank.

The approval was made more than a year after SeABank and Aeon Financial signed a PTF stake transfer agreement worth VND4.3 trillion ($169.5 million).

This divestment plan is part of SeABank's roadmap, approved by its shareholders, to restructure and enhance its financial capacity, focusing on core business areas. Along with the sale of its shares in PTF, SeABank and Aeon Financial aim to become comprehensive partners.

Established in 1998, PTF was one of the first non-bank credit institutions in Vietnam. In 2018, state-owned giant Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) wholly offloaded PTF to SeABank.

After the move, PTF has developed itself into one of the leading consumer finance companies in the country, aided by digital technology. Currently, PTF has a charter capital of VND1.55 trillion ($61 million), employing nearly 2,000 staff and serving about 200,000 customers across the country.

Established in 1994, SeABank is one of the leading joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam with more than 2.5 million customers, more than 5,400 employees, and 181 transaction offices nationwide.

Aeon Financial was established in 1981 as a comprehensive financial services provider within Aeon Group. Its founding mission was to enhance the convenience of shopping for consumers and the firm has expanded beyond Japan, starting with Hong Kong in 1987.

It now offers credit card, installment financing, banking, and insurance services across 11 countries. It began operations in Vietnam in 2008 by establishing ACS Vietnam Trading Co., Ltd., offering installment sales services in partnership with retailers for consumer goods.

At the end of 2023, Vietnam's consumer finance market had an outstanding balance of approximately VND2,400 trillion ($94.6 billion), with financial companies' credit balance reaching around VND135 trillion ($5.32 billion), a decrease of about VND70 trillion from 2022.

Despite difficulties in consumer lending, mergers and acquisitions of financial companies have been still thriving. Recently, Home Credit Group transferred its whole stake in Home Credit Vietnam Finance Co to the Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Limited, a subsidiary of Thailand’s fintech giant SCB X, for 800 million EUR ($824.12 million).

Earlier, the consumer finance market also saw VPBank selling a 49% stake in FE Credit to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui for $1.4 billion.