Author: Fintech News Vietnam

In Vietnam, banks are becoming increasingly aware of open banking and recognizing the need to embrace open APIs to keep up with the rapidly evolving financial landscape. So far, at least two local banks have launched developer portals and are today providing open APIs this includes: Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB); and Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), which launched its open banking platform in January 2020. Saigon Commercial Bank (SBC) have shared plans to implement open banking practices, while Techcombank recently hosted a webinar to educate professionals on the merits of open banking. Data from the State Bank…

The Zühlke Group, a Swiss-based IT service management company, announced the opening of a new office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam scheduled for the first half of 2021. This latest addition has grown its network to 16 offices in 10 countries. Following its announcement of the opening of a new site in Porto, Portugal late last year, Zühlke is now taking the next step in its expansion into the Asian market. Zühlke said that Vietnam is its third location in the region which underscores its growth strategy and ambition in Asia. The company further added that Vietnam offers outstanding…

Vietnamese e-wallet MoMo announced that it had raised US$100 million during its Series D funding round co-led by Goodwater, a Sillicon Valley fund and Warburg Pincus, according to a report by Reuters. New investors include Goodwater Capital, Kora Management and Macquarie Capital, while existing shareholders Warburg Pincus, Affirma Capital, and Tybourne Capital Management aslo took part in the funding round. The funds raised will be used to establish a new super app platform, enhance MoMo’s ecosystem serving its merchants and Vietnamese end users, as well as launch MoMo Innovation Ventures, an initiative to invest in Vietnamese companies with potential to…

Contour, a blockchain trade finance network that’s formerly known as Voltron, announced that it has completed a pilot transaction between two textile companies with its blockchain network. The transaction was conducted between Tainan Spinning based in Taiwan and Century Synthetic Fiber Corporation in Vietnam. CTBC Bank, the founder bank of Contour, was the advising bank in the letter of credit (LC) transaction, supporting Tainan Spinning. The importer, Century Synthetic Fiber Corporation was supported by Vietnamese-based HDBank who acted as the issuing bank. HDBank is reportedly the first Vietnamese based bank to have accomplished the full import LC transaction flow from…

In Vietnam, COVID-19 has driven a sharp upturn in demand for tech infrastructure and digital capabilities as banks accelerate their digital transformation, experts said during a panel discussion. During a webinar hosted by Finastra, experts from the industry shed some light on the state of digital banking in Vietnam’s thriving internet economy. “COVID-19 has accelerated the decision-making within Vietnam’s state-banks to go digital and full digital, so what would have been a 15-month or two-year period [in digital adoption] is now more looking like six to nine months,” Shweta Jain, director of cloud and digital, retail and challenger banks at…

Finastra, a financial services software and cloud solutions provider, announced that Shinhan Bank Vietnam has chosen to integrate its trading and risk platforms with the former’s Fusion Kondor and Fusion Risk solutions. The flexibility and efficiency offered by these solutions is said to position the bank to grow more quickly and fulfil its ambitions of regional and international expansion. “A key focus of our business is being the best solution provider for customers who deal with various risks through derivative products offerings, so it is important for us to remove barriers to growth,” said Kim Tae Hee, Head of Capital…

A new research conducted by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) has revealed a correlation between financial literacy and fintech adoption in Vietnam. The report calls for the country to put more effort into general and financial education programs to rise fintech adoption and consequently help improve financial inclusion. Financial inclusion has become a global issue and is often considered being key to addressing poverty reduction and social inequality. Though Vietnam’s financial and banking system has made significant progress in recent years, financial inclusion remains a major challenge with more than half of the population still not having a bank…

Vietnam’s fintech startup landscape more than tripled in size between 2017 and 2020, growing from 44 startups in 2017 to now 118 startups, according to a new report produced by Fintech News Singapore. The Vietnam Fintech Report 2020 delves into the state of the domestic fintech landscape, shares key industry trends, and looks at the local fintech startups ecosystem. Vietnam’s fintech startups According to the report, the number of fintech startups in Vietnam grew more than 179% between 2017 and 2020. Payment remains the biggest segment, representing 31% of all fintech startups. As of October 2020, Vietnam was home to…

In Vietnam, digital banking development is accelerating on the back of rapid fintech adoption, a booming e-commerce industry and the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing measures put in place to prevent the spread of the virus have pushed consumers towards online commerce and digital payments, two trends experts believe are here to stay. In Q2 2020, overall visits to shopping apps in Vietnam reached 12.7 billion, growing 43% quarter-on-quarter and surpassing that of most other Southeast Asian countries, according to a report by VNExpress. Across Southeast Asia, Vietnam ranked third in the region by number of visits and accounted for 19.5%…

Alongside big names like China and Singapore, South Korea is a rising star in the Asian tech giant battlefield. This nation of 50 million people is known for its tech-savvy population and general wealth – unsurprising for a country that is home to global brands Samsung, LG and Hyundai, etc. In 2019, it also became the world’s first to offer 5G network to smartphones. The fintech industry, as a result, has witnessed outstanding growth in recent years. The expansion of the Korean start-up wave in Asia South Korea is at the forefront of technological development with some of the world’s…

Vietnam’s digital banking platform Timo has warned that from September 8, 2020, existing customers will no longer be able to access their accounts at Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) through the Timo app and web platform. Customers wishing to keep on using their accounts will need to deal with the bank itself and use the VPBank Online banking app instead, Timo said on August 4, 2020. The abrupt interruption was hinted at in late July in an email communication to customers announcing Timo’s new banking partner, Viet Capital Bank (Ngân hàng Bản Việt). Though, at the time, no further…

Temenos, the banking software company, today announced that Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) has selected Temenos Infinity Wealth to deliver digital wealth management services to Vietnamese private banking customers. The implementation will be supported by Temenos’ partner, Syncordis. MB will integrate Temenos Infinity Wealth, an omnichannel digital banking product, with Temenos Transact core banking product to gain a single, end-to-end wealth management solution. Temenos’ cloud-native, API-first technology claims to allow MB to be first to market with differentiated services for mass affluent, High- and Ultra-High-Net-Worth individuals in Vietnam’s untapped investments market. Temenos’ AI-powered technology will improve automation and centralise…

RealStake announced today that it has successfully closed seed funding from 500 Startups Vietnam and various angel investors. RealStake aims to digitise and democratise consumer investment in Southeast Asia. It launched in Vietnam in 2019 by enabling retail real estate investment through fractional homeownership. The platform claims that its rate of selling a property has increased 200% in less than a year since its launch, and customers are generally investing much more than the US$1,000 minimum. They plan to eventually offer a wide range of sophisticated investment products (e.g. ETFs, bonds, term deposits, etc.) as well as tech-driven personalised expert…

IDC Financial Insights today released the 2020 update of its FinTech Fast 101 research which details a list of fast-growing FinTechs in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) from 11 key markets. IDC’s FinTech Fast 101 research refers to fast-growing fintech players based on extensive on-ground analysis of fintech players from China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Australia. 5 Fast Growing FinTechs in Vietnam MOCA Moca offers a mobile payment application that can be used to shop, pay for taxi fares, bills, recharge phone balances, and make online payments. It is integrated with…

Vietnam’s fintech industry gained pace in 2019. Last year, Vietnam ranked second in ASEAN in terms of fintech funding (36%), second only to Singapore (56%). The sharp increase in funding was attributed to two large deals going to payments companies VNPay (US$300 million) and MoMo (US$500 million). The two deals were the top largest and third largest funding rounds of the region. Today, Vietnam is now home to more than 130 fintech startups covering a broad range of services that include  digital payments, alternative finance, wealth management and blockchain. But with the government working on new developments, including a regulatory…

ViettelPay a digital wallet service under the Viettel Group said in a media statement that it is confident that the company will triple its user base by 2020. According to the company, they now have over 9 million users and they are seeing over 40 million transactions annually. The digital wallet enables users to transfer money to over 40 banks, and withdraw money from at all ATMs and Viettel’s services points in Vietnam. Its salary payment service which was launched in 2019 has already secured over 4,000 partners which transact over VND800 Billion (US$ 34 Million) a month. The company…

Grab, today announced the launch of Grab Ventures Ignite, an accelerator programme for early-stage startups, which it said is a part of the Grab for Good development roadmap in Vietnam which aims to create greater social and economic benefits for the country through technology. Grab Ventures Ignite will nurture and support promising Vietnamese startups in their journey to become national champions in Vietnam’s tech startup ecosystem, in line with the government’s national strategy to create 10 technology unicorns by 2030. Vietnam is the first country in Southeast Asia where Grab is launching Grab Ventures Ignite (GVI), it’s early-stage startup support…

Vietnam’s fintech industry, though still nascent, has witnessed significant growth over the past couple of years. As of mid-2019, the country was home to 154 fintech companies which had attracted a total of US$1.1 billion in investment, according to Lam Nguyen Hai Long, chairman of the HCM City Computer Association. Fintech funding saw a sharp increase in 2019, with Vietnamese fintechs raising US$420 million between January and September, or 36% of all fintech funding in Southeast Asia during that period, according to a report by UOB, PwC, and the Singapore Fintech Association. The figure made Vietnam second amongst ASEAN members in terms…

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has scrapped its initial plan to limit foreign ownership of locally registered e-payment companies to 49% after consulting with experts and industry participants, according to a VN Express report. In a note released earlier this month, the SBV said it will not submit the proposal to the government in June after hearing feedbacks from fintech players. The central bank said that foreign investment has played a key role in the domestic payments landscape since providers heavily rely on technology. Limiting foreign ownership would hamper foreign investment in the e-payment sector and fintech in general,…

In December 2014, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued the Circular No. 39/2014/TT-NHNN which sets a series of rules banks and non-bank organizations in Vietnam must follow in order to be permitted to offer intermediary payment services such as electronic payment portal, cash collection and payment services, electronic money transfer services, and e-wallet services. Under the framework, organizations looking to provide such services in Vietnam must apply for a license and must comply to a set of requirements regarding risk management, safety guarantee and security, among other things. The license comes into force from the date of signing and…