The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has approved a plan for the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank (KBank) to increase its charter capital from US$80 million to $285 million, resulting in a 2.5-fold increase.

KBank's office in Ho Chi Minh City. Source: KBank

Chat Luangarpa, Executive Vice President of KBank, said the decision to increase capital was taken to prepare to meet the capital needs of corporate and retail customers, especially in the current unstable economic situation.

KBank has set a loan portfolio target of $960 million in Vietnam by 2023. With the increased capital, the Thai bank has expressed strong ambitions to expand its digital payment and lending services. The bank aims to increase the number of users of its K PLUS Vietnam application from 470,000 to 1.3 million by the end of this year.

With total assets of $122.9 billion at the end of 2022, KBank is among the three largest banks in Thailand. The bank was founded in 1945 by Choti Lamsam and went public in 1976.

Banthoon Lamsam, the grandson, led the bank for 28 years before retiring in 2020. As of June 2022, the net worth of Banthoon Lamsam and his family is $1.19 billion, making them the 29th richest family in Thailand, according to Forbes.

In August 2022, KBank opened a branch in Ho Chi Minh City with a capital of $80 million. After the capital increase was approved, KBank's Ho Chi Minh City branch became the second foreign bank branch in Vietnam with the highest charter capital, after Sumitomo Mitsui Bank Hanoi branch (with $321 million), among the 52 foreign bank branches operating in Vietnam as of March 31.