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TIMELINE
1997: Banco Ambrosiano Veneto (BAV) representative office opened in Manila.
1998: BAV representative office in Manila closed.
In 1997 Banco Ambrosiano Veneto (BAV) became the first Italian bank to establish an outpost in the Philippines, opening a representative office in Manila alongside those in Hong Kong and Beijing (formerly Peking) in order to expand and strengthen its presence in the Far East.
The task of the new representative office was to develop commercial and financial relations between the Philippines and Italy, and to oversee activities in the neighboring countries of Indonesia and Malaysia.
The 1990s saw an economic boom in the Philippines, necessitating significant investments in the infrastructure, construction, textiles and mechanic sectors. The country's credit system consisted of approximately fifty international financial institutions; BAV was the only Italian one among them. However, its representative office had but a brief existence; in view of an agreement with Crédit Agricole Indosuez, which had a well-established presence in the Asian region, deliberations were made to close the office in November 1998 as part of a plan to reorganize the Intesa Group's foreign network, centralizing BAV's international activities within Banca Intesa. |
