OceanBank 'colludes' with VIP customers on interest rates

Admitting that paying extra interest caused OceanBank to lose thousands of billions of dong, Mr. Ha Van Tham explained that this was "a last resort".

On March 7, the Hanoi People's Court continued the 8th working day of the OceanBank case with the questioning of 47 defendants and people with related rights and obligations.

The lawyers focused most of their time asking about Mr. Ha Van Tham's policy of paying interest outside of the contract to take care of customers, causing OceanBank to lose nearly 1,600 billion VND.

Former OceanBank CEO in court on March 7.

According to the 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 held the position of vice chairman of the board of directors of this bank. When taking over the position of replacing Mr. Son at Oceanbank, Ms. Thu was in charge of the business sector, directly responsible for taking care of 3 VIP customers who are companies in the oil and gas industry. "Customer care here is foreign relations," defendant Thu explained.

Speaking further about this, defendant Ha Van Tham (former chairman of the Board of Directors of OceanBank) said that he had discussed and agreed with Mr. Son about the need to pay the difference and spend money to attract customers. "It seems that at that time the financial market was difficult, they deposited money for short terms, if there was no high interest, they would transfer to another bank. Therefore, there was a need for money to take care of customers," Mr. Tham said and admitted that he had directed the payment of interest rates exceeding the ceiling.

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

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

“In the indictment, the defendant gave instructions and his subordinates continued to direct the branches,” the lawyer asked. Mr. Tham admitted that he initially agreed with Mr. Son. Without the customer care fund, OceanBank could not mobilize capital because they would deposit the money in another bank.

Ms. Le Thi Thu Thuy (former deputy general director) said that without the interest payment, OceanBank would have difficulty mobilizing capital as well as paying dividends to shareholders, and would not create jobs for more than 2,000 employees. As the accountant in charge, the defendant thought that Chairman Tham would never make policies that would harm the bank because she held 63% of the shares.

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

Defendant Son, after returning to the Oil and Gas Group, was the person accused of receiving the largest amount of money, but he did not admit that his cousin Nguyen Xuan Thang transferred more than 220 billion VND along with more than 20 billion VND transferred by employees of OceanBank and BSC Company.

According to VNE