Vietnam's State Securities Commission (SSC) said on Monday it has licensed JPMorgan Chase and Far East National Bank to offer securities depository services on its fast-expanding stock markets.
The Ho Chi Minh City branch of each of the banks was allowed to take the deposits as from last Friday, stock market watchdog SSC said in two separate statements.
The licensing took to six the foreign banks allowed to offer securities depository services in the southeast Asian country, after Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Plc.
Another two state-run banks, Vietcombank and Vietindebank, have also been providing the service, SSC data showed.
The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, Vietnam's main stock market with 109 listed companies, has the fastest rising index among Asian stock markets in the first quarter of 2007, after a surge of 144.5 percent last year.
On Monday the index lost 1.6 percent to close at 925.44 points. It was still a rise of 23 percent from the end of 2006. The market's capitalisation stood at $12.3 billion.
In the capital Hanoi a smaller over-the-counter market <.HASTCI> has 87 companies listed with a total capitalisation of $4.8 billion.
Foreign investors have raised their investment in Vietnamese securities to $5 billion as of early last month, from $3 billion to $4 billion in March, industry reports said.
The communist-run country caps foreign ownership in listed companies at 49 percent and 30 percent in listed banks.
Vietnam's central bank has forecast foreign indirect investment would rise to $5.5 billion by the end of this year.
Source: Reuters
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