Author: Fintech News Vietnam

UOB’s innovation accelerator The FinLab has officially launched in Vietnam where it aims to engage 5,000 local businesses over the next three years through its digitalisation and sustainability initiatives. The UOB FinLab held its inaugural programme yesterday (13 June) in Ho Chi Minh City titled “Xin Chào SMEs: Grow Your Sales through E-commerce and Digital Marketing”. It was designed to equip SMEs with the necessary knowledge and strategies to effectively adopt digital technologies to fuel sales growth and expand their customer base regionally. To better support Vietnamese SMEs, UOB FinLab will also collaborate with university professors, industry practitioners, innovation experts…

Global payments software provider OpenWay has expanded its presence in Asia with the opening of a new hub in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This latest addition marks OpenWay’s second hub in Vietnam besides the one in Hanoi. OpenWay has an extensive presence globally. It has Asian corporate hubs in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It’s extensive hub network also spans the Americas, MENA, and Europe, where its headquarters and four other hubs are located. The company provides digital payment software and cloud payment systems solutions which is being used by large financial institutions like Nexi, LOTTE, Network…

Vietnamese e-wallet M-Service which operates under the MoMo brand has begun offering its local customers monthly instalments when they make purchases at the online Apple Store. With this new feature, Vietnamese customers will have the opportunity to shop Apple’s products and use MoMo as a flexible payment gateway. Alongside a one-time payment option, customers who choose to use MoMo Instalments for Apple Store Online can also split their purchase into 6 to 24 monthly instalments with a down payment of 20% and with monthly interest rates. Do Quang Thuan, Senior Vice President in charge of the Financial Services Division at…

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Switzerland signed a co-financing agreement of up to US$5 million for Vietnamese fintechs focused on addressing financial inclusion in the country, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This funding, along with a US$2 million contribution from the Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific, financed by the Government of Japan, will support a technical assistance that aims to expand inclusive and climate finance in the country. This will help the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to strengthen the regulatory framework for digital finance, build the capacity of government and other…

Vietnam’s Techcombank has partnered with Personetics, a global provider of data-driven personalisation solutions, to introduce AI-powered money management capabilities. Through this partnership, Techcombank will offer capabilities to analyse customers’ financial transactions, aggregate bank accounts, and provide valuable insights about unexpected payments, excessive spending, and insufficient account balances. Additionally, the bank will also provide tailored suggestions on savings, asset growth, and card usage to help customers increase their financial resilience and achieve their goals independently. Techcombank had deployed these AI-powered money management capabilities in a 3-week pilot programme with 10,000 participating customers. The bank reported that it saw substantial increases in…

An Binh Bank (ABBANK), a Vietnamese joint stock commercial bank, has partnered with digital banking software provider Backbase to transform its customers’ banking experiences. Supported by ABBANK’s local partner CMC Technology and Solution, Backbase will deliver the full suite of its Engagement Banking Platform, which encompasses Digital Onboarding, Digital Banking, Digital Assist and Digital Engage. The platform will enable omni-channel banking, increase ease in customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell, hyper-personalisation, and improve customer servicing. ABBANK had set a five-year digital transformation strategy in 2021 with the aim to deliver a new level of customer experience through digital channels and strengthen its…

The Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help it build digital banking experiences for its customers. VPBank will use AWS SageMaker and AWS AI Services to enhance its analytics capabilities and accelerate the development of banking-financial applications, enhance automation of banking tasks, and drive new digital banking features such as chatbots and digital banking solutions to improve customer service. The collaboration will also help VPBank optimise costs without having to invest in on-premises infrastructure to scale its digital banking services. VPBank will also leverage the AWS Training and Certification programmes to develop a…

Studies conducted by market research and analytics company Decision Lab, in partnership with marketing trade association MMA Vietnam, have revealed that ZaloPay is now the second most popular e-wallet service in Vietnam. Over the past three quarters, ZaloPay was used by 59% of the consumers polled during Q2 and Q3, and 54% of those surveyed during Q4 2022, according to a series of studies conducted throughout 2022. These findings were shared in the latest Connected Consumer reports. These reports analyze  Vietnamese consumers’ online habits, including social media usage, entertainment consumption (music, movies, videos), browser usage, as well as communication and…

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) has inked a deal to acquire a 15% equity stake in Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) for approximately US$1.5 billion. The deal is set to be finalised by the end of 2023. The acquisition was made through SMFG’s subsidiary Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) through a private placement and is subject to regulatory approval. Through this acquisition, VPBank will become an equity method affiliate of SMFG and SMBC. As one of the largest private banks in Vietnam with over 250 branches throughout the country, VPBank has a strong presence in the retail and…

Over the past years, Vietnam has emerged into one of the fastest-growing fintech markets in Southeast Asia, amid growing customer adoption, sustained venture capital (VC) funding activity, and increased support from the government to foster innovation. In this burgeoning landscape, several VC investment firms are standing out from the crowd for their active involvement in the space. These firms, which include both homegrown funds and companies from overseas but with an active presence in the country, have backed some of the country’s fastest-growing fintech companies. Today, we look at ten VC firms in Vietnam that are helping shape the domestic…

Vietnamese e-wallet M-Service which operates under the MoMo brand announced that it has enabled its customers to receive Western Union money transfers on its app. MoMo said in a press release that it is the first super app in Vietnam to offer a money transfer operator’s services. Through this partnership, MoMo’s 31 million customers can now receive their Western Union money transfers digitally from over 200 countries and territories around the world. In order to collect the funds, customers can search for ‘Western Union’ on the MoMo App and input their Money Transfer Control Number (MTCN). Once that is completed, they…

JACCS International Vietnam Finance Company (JIVF) announced that it will be migrating to Way4, a digital payments platform from OpenWay to bolster its suite of consumer finance products. JIVF is a member of JACCS, which was founded in Japan in 1954 and operates in the consumer loans market for motorcycle and car financing. Way4 allows clients to build highly personalised credit products with flexible implementation whether on premise, in the cloud, or as a dedicated SaaS. It is an end-to-end solution with unique online core, account and events management, dynamic pricing, automated workflows, card issuing and wallet management, merchant management,…

KASIKORNBANK (KBank) is doubling down on the expansion of its operations in Vietnam, setting its sights to achieve US$400 million in net income and a customer base of 8.4 million in Vietnam by 2027. The bank had already established a footprint in Vietnam by opening its first branch in November 2021 and is looking to become one of the top 20 banks in the market in terms of assets. For its retail customers, KBank will be rolling out a new debit card by July this year. Users can apply for the card via the K PLUS Vietnam app and once…

UOB has finalised the acquisition of Citigroup’s consumer banking business which comprises its lending portfolios, wealth management and retail deposit businesses in Vietnam. The completion of the acquisition had also included the transfer of approximately 575 Citigroup related staff to UOB Vietnam. The acquisition is part of a a broader sale agreement covering consumer banking across Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia and excluding the bank’s institutional businesses. So far the acquisition has been finalised in Thailand and Malaysia in November 2022. Meanwhile, the acquisition of Citigroup’s Indonesian consumer banking business is planned for completion by end 2023. Once completed, the…

In 2022, cashless payments continued to see increased usage in Vietnam, carrying on a trend that accelerated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend is emerging at the expense of cash usage which continued its decline last year. In 2022, non-cash payment transactions, including card payments and e-wallets, increased by 85% in volume and 31% in value, data from to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) show. Online transactions grew by 89% in volume and even gained triple-digit growth via mobile phones and QR code scanning. Looking at card payments, chip card transactions via the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS),…

Vietnam-based earned wage access startup GIMO raised US$5.1 million in the first close of its Series A funding round led by TNB Aura. The round was joined by returning investors Integra Partners, Resolution Ventures, Blauwpark Partners, ThinkZone Ventures, and Y Combinator. In 2021, the startup secured a US$1.9 million in a seed extension round and is currently in the process of raising debt capital. GIMO provides on demand-payroll services for blue collar workers and reported a 24x year-on-year revenue growth and an 11x year-on-year transaction volume increase. “The fresh capital will bolster our product innovation that appeals to the underserved…

Vietnamese conglomerate Masan Group’s subsidiary the Sherpa Company has received the green light to invest US$105 million in Singapore’s tech company Trust IQ, the holding company of Trusting Social. The announcement of Masan’s investment was made in April 2022. Sherpa will hold a 25 percent stake in Trust IQ through this investment. Trust IQ is primarily involved in software development, technology and applications on a global scale, which includes the development of comprehensive, accurate credit risk assessment methods based on AI technology. Masan will also be collaborating with Trust IQ to build platforms for consumer and retail artificial intelligence (AI) as…

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has invested US$100 million investment in Joint Stock Commercial Bank Southeast Asia (SeABank) in a push to create greater access to home loans in Vietnam. With this investment, SeABank is expected to at least double the number of loans to buy mid-end and affordable homes by 2026. Additionally, IFC will also advise SeABank on the development of financial products specialising in housing to better serve low- and middle-income people. IFC has partnered with both housing developers and banks in Vietnam to increase the supply of affordable housing and home loan financing for middle-income and middle-income…

Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Gojek announced that it has appointed Sumit Rathor as the General Manager for Vietnam. Sumit will be succeeding Duc Phung who is the Co-founder and former General Manager of Gojek Vietnam since 2020. Phung will be “seeking a new professional challenge outside of the organisation” according to a statement by Gojek. In his new role, Sumit will be leading the operations in Vietnam where he will be focused on business sustainability. With more than 20 years’ experience in strategy, operations and finance, Sumit had joined Gojek in 2019 as the Regional Head of Gojek, Indonesia and…

UOB Vietnam has partnered with mental wellness tech company Intellect to enable its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers to provide well-being support for their employees. The bank said that it aims to develop resilience amongst SMEs which form nearly 99 percent of the region’s enterprises and contribute nearly half of ASEAN’s GDP. UOB Vietnam’s SME customers will get free access to Intellect’s app for three months which includes access to a 24/7 helpline, guided journals for daily reflections, and learning paths to help tackle everyday challenges such as stress caused from a busy work schedule. The SMEs will also…