CIMB Bank granted banking licence by Vietnam
HANOI: CIMB Bank Bhd (CIMB Bank) yesterday announced that CIMB Bank ( Vietnam) Ltd ( CIMB Vietnam), a whollyowned subsidiary of CIMB Bank, was officially presented with its banking licence for Vietnam.
The licence, presented by the State Bank of Vietnam ( SBV) Deputy Governor, Nguyen Phuoc Thanh, was received by the chairman of CIMB Bank, Datuk Zainal Abidin Putih.
The ceremony, held at the SBV office yesterday, was witnessed by the Malaysian Ambassador to Vietnam, His Excellency Mohd Zamruni Khalid.
Also present were Dato’ Wira Zainal and Yew Wan Kup, CIMB Vietnam’s Chairman and CEO respectively.
During the award ceremony, Deputy Governor of SBV, Nguyen Phuoc Thanh remarked, “We are pleased to award this full banking licence to CIMB Vietnam as part of our overall efforts to develop a more open-market economy.
“Congratulations to CIMB Viet- nam and we look forward to its cooperation in advancing bilateral and trade ties between Malaysia and Vietnam, as part of the Asean Banking Integration Framework, in support of our common Asean aspiration.”
Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz, group chief executive, CIMB Group said, “Vietnam’s transformation into a more open, marketoriented economy bodes well for the region, enabling CIMB to deliver its Asean proposition more effectively.
“CIMB’s investment in Vietnam also demonstrates our longterm commitment to contribute to the development of Vietnam’s financial sector and its economy. To that end, we are extremely pleased to receive this banking licence which also marks CIMB’s banking presence in nine out of 10 Asean countries.”
The licence allows CIMB Vietnam to offer the full range of commercial and retail banking products in the country. Thus far, only seven foreign banks have been awarded a licence to operate a 100 per cent banking subsidiary in Vietnam.
CIMB Vietnam is the first to be awarded such a licence after a seven-year hiatus, during which the country undertook major reforms in its financial and banking sector.
Through its head office in Hanoi, CIMB Vietnam will be ready to offer the full suite of banking products to customers by December 2016. One of the happiest moments of their lives was finally realised with the arrival of their firstborn child. Adam and Aida are now the proud parents of healthy little baby Alisa. Today, we’ll be looking at another important planning issue for most parents or parents-to-be: their children’s education funding:
After Adam settled the hospital bills, it’s time to take baby Alisa home. The bill came close to RM5,000 but it’s a “necessary” expense.
Adam and Aida had to make quite a lot of adjustments, especially in the first two weeks. Their nights turned into days and their days turned into nights.
They were also told of the dos and don’ts of childcare from their parents. They were given “hands- on training”. Adam had to learn not only to change the diapers but to also fold them.
He also needed to help Aida wash and sterilise the milk bottles and bathe little Alisa. Thank goodness he didn’t need to do the cooking as he has his mom to help with that chore.
It was physically exhausting but whenever he gazed into the eyes of his daughter, the exhaustion just dissipated. It was well worth it and he enjoyed every moment of it.
After everyone was asleep, Adam finally had some time for himself and he took the opportunity to open up his laptop to review his family budget. He felt that he should start saving for his little daughter’s education as soon as possible but needed to find out how much to set aside. So, he began updating some figures: ( Refer to table above)
With the revised budget, it looks like he has about RM1,000 per month that he can save for his daughter’s education.
Besides having opened the normal children’s savings account in the bank, Adam wanted to start Alisa off on an insurance programme as soon as possible because the premiums are cheaper.
So, he got her covered for life and medical insurance with some savings element for a total premium of RM200 per month.
He also made an initial investment of RM1,000 in a unit trust fund and committed a further RM200 per month into a regular investment plan of the same fund.
He estimated that if he can consistently get a return of eight per cent over the next 18 years, he should have accumulated about RM100,000 for her education fund.
In addition, he will be putting another RM200 per month into the Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) which should give him another RM100,000.
Apart from the above, he also learned about the Skim Simpanan Pendidikan Nasional ( SSPN). This scheme is introduced by the National Higher Education Fund Corporation ( PTPTN) which puts emphasis on ‘Savings towards Higher Education’.
Besides ensuring annual dividend returns, the SSPN also provides special financial incentives in the form of Matching Grants especially for low income depositors.
In addition, insurance coverage and payment of death compensation is provided free of charge to all eligible depositors. This scheme is opened to all Malaysians (for more information, go to www.ptptn.gov.my).
Adam decided to make an initial deposit of RM3,000 to maximize the full amount of tax relief available.
As we can see from the above, there are more than one way to save up for our children’s education fund.
Very often, parents forget about their children’s insurance programme as they may think that it is not important. However, certain types of insurance like medical insurance are just as important.
Apart from that, an important concept here is diversification. We’ve often heard of the phrase,
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” and it couldn’t be truer for this case. Adam had in fact used as many as five baskets to save for his daughter’s education.
Another important thing here to note is to save consistently. Sometimes, or rather most of the times, it is not how high a return you can get (of course, that helps!) but how long you save and remain saved that matters most.
Saving for our children’s education need not be every parent’s nightmare if we can educate ourselves on the following principles:
1. Start early. If you are already planning to start a family, you can actually start a savings programme even before your child is born. This allows the power of compound interest to work better for you.
2. Stay disciplined. Very often, our immediate wants ( like upgrading to a bigger car) would take precedence over our longer term needs (our children’s education). We have to remain focused and disciplined to achieve a long term goal.
3. Utilize various instruments. As illustrated above, we can always use more than one vehicle to accumulate our funds and the key to spreading out investment risks of a particular instrument is diversification.
4. Save consistently. As mentioned above, we should save consistently and not give ourselves excuses for skipping a month or two’s savings. Enrol into an automatic savings programme if it works better for you.
5. Assess your needs. You need to know your financial goal to know whether you’re on track. You’d also need to constantly keep yourself up to- date with the latest education costs as they generally rise each year, not forgetting the currency fluctuations as well.
6. Think positive. The task may be daunting but do not underestimate your ability. What the mind can conceive, it can achieve. If we’ve done our best, we should leave the rest to God. If it is God’s will that your child should be a graduate, He’ll provide the funds. Otherwise, He has other plans for your child and we’ll just need to have faith.
7. Set reasonable expectations. Talk to your children pertaining to the family’s finances and set reasonable expectations with them. If it takes too much to save up that million Ringgit in order to send them overseas, tell them earlier that they’ll have to study hard to obtain a scholarship.
As parents, we certainly want to provide the best education that money can buy for our children. However, sometimes the best things in life need not cost an arm and a leg.
The best education parents can provide to their children may be found at home, normally by being good role models and by practicing what they preach. No amount of money can substitute our role and responsibility as parents to educate our children well.
(Look out for the ninth story in this series of 12 next week on October 4, 2016)
We are pleased to award this full banking licence to CIMB Vietnam as part of our overall efforts to develop a more open-market economy. Nguyen Phuoc Thanh, SBV Deputy Governor