[18 May 2012] - The Government of Vietnam received a credit from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group in the amount of USD 200 million equivalent for the Third Rural Finance Project (RFIII). The Project Development Objective is to increase economic benefits for rural private enterprises and households in the Project area inVietnam by improving their access to financial services.

RFIII is implemented over a 5-year period (2009-2013) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) has been designated by the Government of Vietnam as project implementation agency. For this purpose, BIDV has established a Project Management Unit (PMU) within its Transaction Center III. 

The Banking Supervisory Agency (BSA) is a member agency of  the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), accountable for administrative inspecting, specialization inspecting and supervising on banking in those areas within SBV’s state management; advising and assisting the Governor in state management of credit institutions, micro-finance institutions (MFIs), implementing the prevention and anti-money laundry in accordance with laws.
 
A part of the above-mentioned IDA credit is transformed into a grant from the Government budget for those activities considered to be public goods for rural finance of Vietnam. This includes strengthening the capacity of the Banking Supervisory Agency (BSA) in overseeing the People’s Credit Fund system and micro-finance activities.
 
The World Bank, SBV and BIDV have selected the consortium between AFC International Consultants and Economica Vietnamto implement the grant. The overall objectives of consulting services are to improve the capacity of the staff and inspectors of the BSA in overseeing the micro-finance system and institutions having micro-finance activities in Vietnam, with the focus on the CCF/cooperative bank and PCF system. 

The consulting service is implemented from April 2012 and finalized in December 2012. Upon the completion of the service, AFC Consultant International and Economica Vietnam are tasked with achieving the following outputs:    

• To provide an assessment on the work process by BSA in overseeing the CCF/cooperative bank and PCF system. 
• To provide an assessment on the capacity of BSA (with focus on human resource capacity) in overseeing the CCF/cooperative bank and PCF system. 
• To develop a manual on inspecting CCF/cooperative bank and PCF system.
• To recommend a roadmap of strengthening the process and the  capacity of BSA’s capacity in overseeing MFIs, CCF/cooperative bank and PCFs.
• To improve the capacity of BSA via the a training program targeting 300 supervisors and inspectors of SBV.

The combination of international expertise and local expertise of the consortium has made the delivery of the consulting service special and well-suited to the needs of the BSA as the key beneficiary of the project.  

Economica Vietnam has recently entered into various partnership and consortium with international consulting companies to meet the increasingly complex demand of clients.