Bank South Pacific (BSP), Papua New Guinea’s largest bank, signed a joint venture deal with RMA Cambodia to enter the Cambodian asset finance market, according to a media report yesterday.

BSP purchased a 50 percent stake in local leasing firm RMA Finance, a subsidiary of RMA Cambodia, and is considering rebranding and renaming the entity, according to online daily news site One Papua New Guinea.

Kostas Constantinou, chairman of BSP, was quoted as saying the bank’s joint venture in Cambodia was already in operation. He added that BSP was also looking to enter other regional markets within the next two years, including Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

“We had a look at all the countries, and the first country that we homed in on was Cambodia, and what we are doing is a joint venture,” he said. “We are the biggest bank in PNG and the Pacific, but we wanted to make a mark in Asia. We can only do that because we are making extremely good profits.”

BSP reported $202 million in after-tax profit in 2016, according to a dividend announcement on its website, an increase of $35 million compared with 2015. Unaudited results for the first quarter of this year show after-tax profit reached $55.5 million, increasing $8.5 million from the same period last year.