Personal Finance Mgt (PFM) Vietnam

GoBear Announces Philippines, HK and Vietnam Expansion Plans, Adds Personal Loans Comparison

GoBear, a Singaporean fintech company providing insurance and financial comparison services throughout Asia, has announced the addition of personal loans into its offerings as well as plans to further expand in the region, now eyeing Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Personal loans comparison is currently available in Singapore and Malaysia, but the company said it will soon launch the new offering in Thailand as well.

“Personal loans are very much in demand across Southeast Asia,” Andre Hesselink, CEO of GoBear, said in a statement. “With the simplicity and transparency of GoBear’s metasearch engine, all Singapore banks on board and a sleek user interface, choosing a Personal Loan is a quick and uncomplicated process.”

Headquartered in Singapore since early 2015, GoBear is a joint venture between two Dutch companies: Walvis, a private equity fund, and Aegon. The company provides a free metasearch engine for insurance and banking products, allowing users to compare products ranging from travel insurance, car insurance, health insurance, to credit cards and personal loans.

In just over a year, the company has already attracted over 2 million users across Asia. The once 3-person outfit quickly grew to 50 employees, and has established a strong market presence in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, the latest country it expanded to in May.

“Southeast Asia is our focus, we started in Singapore, where we are based, then we rapidly expanded to Thailand, which is one of the biggest markets,” Hesselink told Bloomberg TV Malaysia in an interview.

“With nearly 30 million people, Malaysia is a really interesting market,” he said, noting that he expected around 3 million new users over the next few months from Malaysia alone.

What makes GoBear different from competitors is that it is a metasearch engine that solely focuses on researching and delivering the best options to users.

“We are a metasearch [engine], which makes us unbiased. We compare but we do not sell. This makes us different from other [comparison services] because it gives [users] a feeling of trust, security,” Hesselink said. “We compare the whole market while others compare what they sell, and sell what they compare.”

The next stops will be the Philippines, Vietnam and Hong Kong, the company said in a release yesterday.

GoBear currently offers more than 2,000 financial products for users in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The service covers more than 95% of the Singapore market for its car, health, travel insurance, and credit card categories.

Financial comparison services are flourishing in Asia with a number of players already emerging as regional leaders.

With operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, CompareAsiaGroup is one of the leading online comparison platforms for banking and insurance products in the Asia Pacific region. Its Vietnamese portal MoneyHero.com.vn has not yet to be launched.

Founded in 2014, CompareAsiaGroup provides comprehensive, free and independent online comparison tools for insurance, credit cards, personal loans and other financial products.

CompareAsiaGroup has raised US$46 million in venture capital so far from Nova Founders Capital, Goldman Sachs, Mark Pincus, and Route 66 Ventures, among others.

Other financial comparison platforms in the region include MoneySmart in Singapore, BankGo in Vietnam, CekAja in Indonesia, and Jirnexu (formerly Saving Plus) in Malaysia.

Featured image via GoBear.