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Singapore based consumer finance group Silkway Ventures has expanded its operations to Southeast Asian region by opening a subsidiary in Vietnam.
The group announced that it has launched its online peer-to-peer lending platform Moneybank.vn. Over the next five years the company plans to expand its footprint to other neighboring Asian markets to tap into a potential underbanked consumer base, estimated to be 500 million people.
Vietnam is the first international foray in the digital consumer lending space for Silkway Ventures.
Vietnam has a population of over 90 million people, where demand for consumer finance services is rising rapidly and a large percentage of the population is virtually unbanked. At the same time the rate of Internet and smartphone penetration is already significant. The digital consumer finance model offers greater customer coverage at a significantly lower cost compared to traditional banking channels.
The move by Silkway Ventures into the Vietnam consumer finance market offers a welcoming Segway for fintech companies to access the market and drive further development in this sector.
Tech entrepreneur, founder and CEO Silkway Ventures Alexey Sidorov, said:
Alexey Sidorov
“We believe in the power of technologies in our hands combined with ideas in our minds. We want to bridge the gap and deliver consumer finance products to people across Asia. Vietnam is a great market, we are very excited to be here and bring about our idea of inclusive finance.
The technological development, expertise and entrepreneurial ambitions of our team and growth and progress of other fintech companies in the USA and Europe have been an inspiration for us to pursue ever more ambitious milestones.
Our mission is to increase the level of financial inclusion leveraging technology to provide convenient access to credit services for millions of people. Today more than 2 billion people in the world do not have access to banking services and most of them live in Asia.”
The company has examined the potential demand for consumer credit in various Southeast Asian countries including regulatory issues, cultural concerns regarding the use of credit products, existing infrastructure, comprising payment systems, data providers and rate of Internet and smartphone penetration and found Vietnam to have the best “product-market” fit.
Silkway Ventures plans to increase business volume several fold in the next few years driven by the geographical expansion. The company plans to invest a six digit number in the next 12 to 18 months at a ramp-up phase.
Singapore based consumer finance group Silkway Ventures has expanded its operations to Southeast Asian region by opening a subsidiary in Vietnam.
