A stroll down Lang Xang Avenue in the heart of Vientiane, Laos’s once-sleepy capital, might persuade a visitor that the landlocked communist country is on the cusp of a financial takeoff.
The six-lane boulevard is lined with banks. Between the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank at opposite ends of Lang Xang, there are a dozen commercial banks, ranging from the internationally recognised ANZ to locally incorporated joint-venture banks (Bank Maybank Lao, Banque France Lao, Lao Viet Bank) and a handful of Thai banks such as Siam Commercial, Krung Thai and Krungsri. Siam Commercial boasts one of the city’s most attractive branches in a beautifully renovated French colonial-era building with a spacious car park. It is often empty.
