State-run financial group completes acquisition of RBS Uz under global expansion strategy


Korea Development Bank has set the goal of becoming one of the top 20 banks in Asia by 2015 and entering the top 20 in the world by 2020, executives said Thursday.

The bank’s parent KDB Financial Group completed its takeover of the Royal Bank of Scotland Uzbekistan, or RBS Uz, in November after signing a contract in December 2010.

KDB Financial Group chairman Kang Man-soo, who participated in an event to celebrate the bank merger in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last Wednesday, expressed his resolution to make active investments in the central Asian country.

The financial group plans to merge RBS Uz with UzKDB, the Uzbekistan unit of KDB next year.

The combined entity is expected to become the seventh-largest lender and the biggest foreign bank in Uzbekistan.

KDB also plans to open more branches in China, the world’s fastest growing economy. The bank will increase its outlets in the country’s northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, areas where Korean industrial companies are particularly active.

Expanding its business network in western China, a finance market that has been growing at around 15 percent per annum, is also among the bank’s priorities.

In addition, KDB has been enjoying an increased presence in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

KDB is expanding new businesses in the overseas market to avoid unnecessary competition in the domestic financial market and to increase the national wealth by diverting the abundant foreign liquidity inflows to overseas investment.

For example, KDB is utilizing its Hong Kong subsidiary, KDB Asia Ltd., to launch offshore private equity funds and run international asset management businesses.

Also, through agreements with development financing agencies in emerging markets, the bank plans to support new overseas energy and resources development projects.

By employing its network with the Northeast Asia Development Financing Council, the three northeastern provinces of China and the Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia, KDB will open up new project-financing markets overseas.

It is also poised to raise its investment banking business to the global level. In doing so, it will seek to emphasize its role as the lead manager of overseas bond issuance.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)