The management of fuel distributor Petrolimex, which owns a 40 percent stake in PG Bank, has expressed disappointment in the delay in merging at the bank’s last two annual general meetings.

Its earlier aborted merger bids were with state-owned VietinBank and Military Bank (MB).

PG Bank announced in 2014 plans to merge with VietinBank. Bank mergers usually mean a larger bank acquiring a smaller one or two banks merging into one and acquiring a common identity.

Vietnam saw its share of such deals at that time like SCB acquiring Tin Nghia Bank and De Nhat Bank, SHB acquiring Habubank and Western Bank merging with PVFC to form PVcomBank.

But PG Bank wanted to keep its own brand and operate as "a bank within a bank," something without precedent, and predictably the deal collapsed despite four years of talks.

MB announced the same year that it was looking for potential acquisitions and PG Bank was one of its targets. The two held negotiations but no deal was signed.

HDBank immediately came up with a merger proposal, but three years on the two have not been able to finalize a deal.

The repeated failures have taken a toll on the bank. It has not been able to expand since 2014 since an expansion would affect the valuation.

Its charter capital remains unchanged at VND3 trillion ($130 million).

In 2019, it had said the delay in merging with HDBank was affecting its business and caused employee turnover to increase.