OceanBank secretly negotiates interest rates with VIP customers.

While acknowledging that paying extra interest caused OceanBank losses of thousands of billions of dong, Mr. Ha Van Tham explained that it was a "last resort".

On March 7th, the Hanoi People's Court continued its eighth day of proceedings in the case of irregularities at OceanBank, questioning 47 defendants and those with related rights and obligations.

The lawyers focused most of their questioning on whether Mr. Ha Van Tham's policy of paying interest outside of contractual agreements to "care for" customers caused OceanBank to suffer losses of nearly 1,600 billion VND.

Former CEO of OceanBank appears in court on March 7th.

According to the testimony of defendant Nguyen Minh Thu (former general director), at the end of 2010, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Son left the position of general director of OceanBank but still retained the position of vice chairman of the bank's board of directors. When she took over from Mr. Son at OceanBank, Ms. Thu was in charge of the business division, directly responsible for taking care of three VIP clients, which were companies in the oil and gas industry. "Taking care of clients here means external relations," defendant Thu explained.

Elaborating on this, defendant Ha Van Tham (former chairman of the Board of Directors of OceanBank) stated that he had discussed and agreed with Mr. Son on the need to pay the difference and spend money to attract customers. “It seems that at that time the financial market was difficult, and they deposited money for short terms; if they didn't get high interest rates, they would switch to other banks. Therefore, a sum of money was needed to take care of customers,” Mr. Tham said, admitting that he had directed the payment of interest rates exceeding the ceiling.

According to the allegations, OceanBank paid nearly 250 billion VND in extra interest to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Son in his capacity as a representative of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group. Ms. Nguyen Minh Thu paid more than 48 billion VND to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation, Binh Son Refinery and Petrochemical Company, and Vietsopetro Joint Venture...

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong (former deputy general director) received over 260 billion VND, of which over 105 billion VND was spent on the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, the Vietnam Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Corporation (over 76 billion VND), and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Power Corporation (over 35 billion VND)...

“In the indictment, the defendant gave instructions, and subordinates continued to give instructions to the branches,” the lawyer asked. Mr. Tham admitted that he had initially agreed with Mr. Son. Without customer care, OceanBank could not raise capital because customers would deposit their money in other banks.

Ms. Le Thi Thu Thuy (former deputy general director) stated that without the extra interest payments, OceanBank would have found it difficult to raise capital, pay dividends to shareholders, and create jobs for over 2,000 employees. As the head of accounting, the defendant believed that Chairman Tham would never issue policies that would harm the bank because he held 63% of the shares.

Meanwhile, those who received money from OceanBank denied that the bank paid interest outside of the contract. Major partners who deposited money into OceanBank all testified in court that they "did not receive a single penny" from OceanBank.

Defendant Son, after returning to the Petroleum Group, who was accused of receiving the largest sum of money, also denied receiving over 220 billion VND from his cousin Nguyen Xuan Thang, along with over 20 billion VND transferred by employees of OceanBank and BSC Company.

According to VNE