The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest lender, is still confident of buying into Thailand's ACL bank, an ICBC insider told Xinhua Tuesday.

Bangkok Bank of Thailand announced Monday the postponement of the sale of its 19.3-percent stake in ACL bank to ICBC, which was set for the end of 2007.

"It will not take too much time for ICBC to complete the purchase. But the two sides need to talk more on the specific amount of the share," a source familiar with the process said.

The Bank of Thailand, the central bank, prohibits domestic banks from holding more than a 10 percent inter-bank stake.

Bangkok Bank's sale of the ACL stake will wait for the promulgation of Thailand's new commercial law in 2008, which is expected to raise the stake foreign funded enterprises may hold from 25 percent to 49 percent, the bank's president Chartsiri Sophonpanich said Monday.

Kulathida Sivayathorn, executive vice president of Bangkok Bank, disclosed in mid-December that it was negotiating with ICBC on selling the stake.

Kulathida also mentioned ICBC might purchase another 30.6 percent of ACL bank from the country's Ministry of Finance.

ICBC would hold a 49.9-percent stake in ACL bank if it succeeds in the two deals, above the ceiling of 49 percent.

According to media reports, as of September 12, Bangkok-based ACL bank, a small financial institution established in 1968, has a total market value of 9.5 billion baht (279.4 million U.S. dollars).

As for ICBC, which overtook Citigroup in July as the world's biggest bank, is flush with cash. The total market value of ICBC was 348.5 billion U.S. dollars on Tuesday.

ICBC was simultaneously listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong in October last year, raising 21.9 billion U.S. dollars, exceeding the previous record of 18.4 billion U.S. dollars set by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998.

ICBC acquired Indonesian Halim Bank, Macao Seng Heng Bank and Standard Bank of South Africa in quick succession since the end of last year.

"Foreign banks, rocked by the subprime mortgage crisis, have slowed down their mergers and acquisitions, while Chinese banks, supported by rich cash and sufficient foreign currency assets, have become more and more competitive on the 'cash is king' market," said Jiang Jianqing, ICBC's board chairman.

"We are especially interested in acquisition opportunities in emerging markets in Africa and Asia," Jiang was quoted as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2007)