Foreign banks not yet allowed to open branches in Myanmar

Myanmar has not yet allowed foreign banks to open branches in the country, however multinational bankers are seeking to set up such banks in the country, an official of the Central Bank of Myanmar told Xinhua Thursday. He denied the report about the recent opening of a foreign- invested bank in the country which appeared on some websites in the internet. In line with its economic reforms which also cover the banking sector, the government allows foreign banks to open representative offices of foreign banks in the country as the first phase. If foreign banks want to do banking business in the country, they are required to undertake as a joint-venture with Myanmar counterparts in the future as the second phase in the banking system reforms, he said. In the third phase, the banks can be operated in the form of wholly foreign-owned ones. So far, there are 23 representative offices of foreign banks set up in Myanmar. They are mainly from Brunei, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. There is a total of 22 banks in Myanmar of which three are state-owned. Meanwhile, starting July 11, authorized private banks in Myanmar started to admit opening of foreign currency accounts with the public in U.S. dollar, Euro and Singapore dollar as well as foreign exchange certificate. Aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate of foreign currency and ensure emergence of foreign exchange market in the country, the Central Bank of Myanmar granted 11 Myanmar private banks to trade the three foreign hard currencies.