Prudential has agreed to divest its consumer finance business in Vietnam for $151m to Shinhan Card, a subsidiary of Korean financial institution Shinhan Financial Group.
The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals.
The two companies have also agreed on a new long-term bancassurance partnership in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Prudential Vietnam Finance Company (PVFC) was launched in 2006 as the first foreign, non-bank financial institution licensed for consumer finance lending in Vietnam.
PVFC stated that it is committed to its customer obligations and that the operations will continue as normal until the transaction is completed.
Prudential stated that it also remains committed to the Vietnamese market through its other insurance businesses including Prudential Vietnam Assurance, the life insurance business and Eastspring Investments Fund Management Company (Vietnam), the asset management business.
Prudential Corporation Asia CEO Nic Nicandrou said: “PVFC is a high quality business but is not core to our strategy in Vietnam. We are delighted that Shinhan will be able to lead this consumer finance business through to the next stage of its development.
"Vietnam remains an attractive and important market to Prudential where we have high quality and fast-growing life insurance and asset management operations.
“As part of this transaction, we are further expanding our regional platform through the new long-term bancassurance partnership with Shinhan in both Vietnam and Indonesia to continue serving the growing savings and protection needs of the Asian population.”
Recently, Prudential partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) in Thailand to offer unit-linked bancassurance solutions for SCB’s wealth segment customers. With the partnership, Thai customers will be able to access Prudential Thailand’s unit-linked products through the bank’s licensed financial advisers.
The two companies said that they will initially offer three-unit linked products with both regular and single premium options to offer protection, savings and investment needs of customers.
Image: Prudential office building in Reading, UK. Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Smith/Wikipedia.org.