ANZ said it agreed to pay about US$9.3 million for a 60 per cent stake in Vientiane Commercial Bank in Laos.In early February the International Finance Corporation said it agreed to buy a 10 per cent shareholding in VCB alongside ANZ, not that this detail was widely noticed in ANZ's home market. ANZ bank said a group of VCB's founding shareholders will remain as investors.VCB is the largest private sector commercial bank in Laos, which the IFC describes as a "frontier market". VCB had assets of US$54 million, according to ANZ. ANZ's undertaking a systematic program of investment in low income and middle income markets of south-east Asia. ANZ also controls the only private bank in Cambodia, and most recently agreed to buy into one of the top five banks in Malaysia.In Malaysia, AMMB Holdings Bhd yesterday said that it received clearance from Bank Negara Malaysia for the proposed sale of a stake of up to 25 per cent to ANZ.ANZ said in late November that it had agreed to initially pay 1.08 billion ringgit for a 13.5 per cent stake in AMMB, the fifth largest financial services group in Malaysia and the owner of AmBank.The investment was said at the time to be subject to further negotiations on the terms of a "strategic partnership", particularly related to ANZ representation on the board of AMMB and ANZ involvement in strategy and staff training. The results of these negotiations are yet to be made public.