Author: Fintech News Vietnam

Vietnamese e-wallet M-Service which operates under the MoMo brand announced it has raised US$200 million Series E in a funding round that was led by Mizuho Bank, a subsidiary of Mizuho Financial Group. With this latest fundraise, MoMo is now a unicorn with a valuation surpassing US$ 2 billion. Mizuho Bank had also snapped up approximately 7.5% of the company’s shares for US$ 170 million. The other investors participating in the round include Ward Ferry Management as well as existing shareholders Goodwater Capital LLC and Kora Management In January this year, MoMo had secured US$100 million during its Series D…

Lending platform F88 Business has entered into a new strategic partnership with CIMB Bank Vietnam to promote financial inclusion to the unserved and underserved sector of the economy. According to the latest figures from the General Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam had more than 28.2 million people who were unemployed, or experienced income reductions because of COVID-19 in the third quarter of the year. The situation makes it harder for workers to get access to bank loans as they are unable to prove their credit worthiness. Understanding the difficulties that Vietnamese workers face, the strategic alliance could lead to productive institutional…

Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK (KBank) announced that it has opened a branch in Ho Chi Minh City with the aim of linking the trade and investment network within the ASEAN region. This will be KBank’s first branch in Vietnam, and its tenth overseas one. By the end of 2022, the KBank has set targets for the deposits and loans of the HCMC branch at 1.2 billion Baht and 15 billion Baht, respectively. Along with this, the bank said that it is looking to expand its customer base in Vietnam to a total of 8 million within the next five years. KBank added…

LOTTE Finance Vietnam, a subsidiary of South Korean credit card company LOTTE Card, has rolled out Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services for customers in the country. The “PayLater by LOTTE Finance” feature is based on the Way4 digital payments software from OpenWay. With this service, LOTTE Finance grants each customer a personal credit limit. Customers can pay for goods and services on LOTTE Finance’s partner e-commerce platforms within this limit, even if they do not have funds in their bank account or cash to pay immediately in full. Customers can quickly and easily apply for a PayLater credit limit…

SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu has worked with Vietnamese digital bank Cake, a collaboration between Be Group and VPBank, to replace its core banking technology in just 74 days. The core replacement project will enable Cake to rapidly launch flexible and unique products, as well as shorten processing times. Originally launched in January 2021, Cake sought to replace its core banking technology with Mambu’s platform in order to support its current hypergrowth stage. It is the first digital bank in Vietnam to be linked to a ride-hailing app, and plans to reach 30 million customers by the end of this…

CIMB Vietnam has officially introduced the issuance of its CIMB-Finhay credit card on the Finhay app through digital onboarding without the need for any documentations. The launch opens up opportunities for many Vietnamese people to own credit cards, popularising financial management skills on one platform. The world is changing. Your bank should too. That’s why together with Finhay, CIMB has designed the co-branded Revi Credit differently “Transparent. Smart. Instant.” Partnering with Visa, the card boasts rewards, zero annual fees, a low-interest rate range, “intelligent” features as well as has a beautiful design. An Exceptional Digital Experience Credit cards are essential especially…

Vietnam’s young and digitally-savvy population, low rates of formal financial inclusion and high smartphone ownership and Internet penetration, make the country’s banking and financial services industry ride for disruption. Against this backdrop, incumbents are teaming up with fintech companies and tech providers to ramp up their digital banking propositions; embracing APIs, cloud technology and embedded fintech to deliver convenience, choice and speed to Vietnam’s young, digital-first consumers. Just this week, Vietnam’s newest digital bank, Cake, announced that it will be partnering with Mambu, a software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud-native banking platform, to scale its business operations and provide a comprehensive range of…

Vietnamese digital bank Cake announced that it has selected cloud banking platform Mambu to scale its business towards offering a full suite of digital banking services. Launched in January 2021, Cake is a collaboration between Be Group, the organisation behind Vietnam’s ‘Be’ ride-hailing app, and Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank). The products and services offered by Cake are fully licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam through VP Bank, with beFinancial which is a part of Be Group, looking after the operations of the new digital bank. Cake is the first digital banking solution attached to a ride-hailing…

Visa has partnered with Vietnam banks to make it easier for Visa debit cardholders to receive inbound remittances using MoneyGram and Remitly. Powered by Visa Direct, cardholders will receive the funds directly to their accounts in near real-time. Vietnam is one of the 10 largest recipient countries of remittances with funds arriving from about 5.3 million Vietnamese people living and working in over 130 countries. This collaboration connects Vietnamese Visa debit cardholders to a global remittance network making the process of receiving funds simple, fast and secure. “The partnership with MoneyGram, Remitly and our bank partners will provide a fast…

A recent study of 2,000 global consumers by Mambu, a banking and financial services platform, revealed that both banked and unbanked individuals feel underserved, with 56% of banked customers claiming that there are other services they should be able to access. “With more than 290 million unbanked adults across Southeast Asia, exclusion from formal financial services remains a significant problem for people throughout the region. What’s very interesting to note from this survey, however, is that even consumers who are formally banked have reported gaps in financial accessibility,” said Pham Quang Minh, Mambu’s General Manager Vietnam. “Vietnam has a very…

Between 2021 and 2025, mobile transactions in Vietnam are expected to surge 300% as Vietnam continues to leapfrog into the mobile channel, a new report by IDC and Backbase found. The second edition of Fintech and Digital Banking 2025 Asia Pacific (APAC) explores the narrative of digital fitness and resilience of the financial services industry for 2025 and beyond, and looks at the major trends to watch out for in key APAC markets including Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. According to the research, incumbent banks in Vietnam have understood the need to place the mobile channel at the center…

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is asking the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to study and carry out a pilot implementation for a digital currency powered by blockchain technology in the 2021-2023 period. The surprise move came in the Prime Minister’s Decision 942, released in June which lays out a plan for digitizing the government by 2030 and directs the SBV to research, “develop, and pilot the use of virtual currency-based on blockchain technology.” Binh Nguyen Thanh, coordinator at the RMIT University Vietnam’s Fintech-Crypto Hub, told Nikkei Asia that Decision 942 could open the door to the development of…

AIA Vietnam and e-commerce platform Tiki has formed a 10-year agreement for an expansion of their financial services offerings. Under this agreement, AIA Vietnam will become Tiki’s exclusive insurance partner, enabling its customers to gain access to life and health insurance solutions via its e-commerce platform. AIA Vietnam and Tiki will also jointly explore collaboration opportunities to meet the diverse and increasing financial needs of Vietnamese people. By leveraging AIA’s omnichannel distribution and leading technology capabilities, alongside Tiki’s all-in-one e-commerce platform, this partnership offers significant potential for both entities to build long term relationships with even more customers across Vietnam.…

The Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) has chosen digital banking software provider Backbase to accelerate the digitalisation of its retail and corporate omni-channel engagement. Techcombank will leverage Backbase’s platform to innovate and design new digital financial services experiences for both retail and corporate customers. Backbase will deploy its engagement banking platform to give Techcombank greater agility and time to market for its digital strategy. Moreover, the platform will allow Techcombank to create, manage, and optimise its end-to-end customer experience seamlessly as it scales up its digital offerings as a digital-first bank. By doubling down on its digitalization efforts…

Vietnam’s digital bank Timo has announced two new additions to its Global Advisory Board; Nirukt Sapru, former CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam and Nam Tran, Co-Founder and Chairman of Moca. Additionally, Timo has concurrently made a series of additional senior management appointments tasked with developing further innovative solutions. Nam Tran co-founded and led the development of Moca, a pioneer in mobile payments in Vietnam. Moca has successfully launched a strategic partnership with Grab since late 2018 and has also partnered with more than 20 banks and leading retailers such as McDonald’s and 7-Eleven. Nam is also a Senior Advisor and…

Embedded finance will transform the role of finance, making it contextual, convenient and cost-effective. Instead of finance being a stand-alone function, it will get ingrained into the lifestyle of customers, whether it is making credit available at the point of sale or providing smart advice during a customer’s life event. And, indeed, we are now seeing the popularity of embedded-finance solutions in the real world. Apple’s collaboration with Goldman Sachs to produce Apple Card gave the tech giant an important financial tool embedded within the Apple ecosystem. In Vietnam, recently, Đoàn Văn Hiểu Em, CEO of the Mobile World’s store…

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that FE CREDIT, a consumer lender in Vietnam and subsidiary of VP Bank, is moving the vast majority of its IT infrastructure to cloud. With the move to AWS, FE CREDIT said that it is Vietnam’s first non-bank financial services provider to be fully hosted in cloud. This will allow it to respond faster to the company’s business objectives in market penetration and expansion. FE CREDIT has migrated most of its mission-critical applications to AWS, including the Infosys Finacle Digital Banking solution suite, and its own $NAP and SHIELD mobile applications for consumer loan, credit…

Fundiin, a Vietnamese Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform, has raised an undisclosed sum during its venture funding round led by 1982 Ventures and Zone Startups Ventures. This round of funding will allow Fundiin to expand their early lead in the market to serve a growing waitlist of merchants and their customers. As part of its investment in Fundiin, Scott Krivokopich, Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures has joined its board of directors. Fundiin was founded by Nguyen Anh Cuong (CEO) and Vo Hoang Nam (CTO) amidst the rise in BNPL offerings in Southeast Asia. Nguyen Anh Cuong, CEO of Fundiin…

Jeff App, a Latvian fintech startup providing a data-enabled loan brokerage platform for unbanked customers in Asia, has closed a $1 million financing round. Jeff App said that the funds will be used to launch new products and fuel growth in Vietnam, their first market, before expanding into other countries in Southeast Asia. The startup will also use the funds to launch and scale new products that range from a free credit score and insurance offers to digital discount coupons and mobile wallet cashbacks. Additionally, the funding will also help to expand across the region, starting with Indonesia and the…

In Vietnam, COVID-19 has been a catalyst for digital transformation in the insurance sector, forcing incumbents to ramp up their digital capabilities and embrace technology. Post and Telecommunication Joint Stock Insurance Corporation (PTI), one of the Vietnam’s top three non-life insurance firms, has put digital transformation as one of its top strategic priorities. In 2020, the firm invested heavily on upgrading its core information technology (IT) system, partnered up with tech startups and launched new digital products, including the PTI mobile app for motor vehicle insurance. These developments came on the back of rapid growth in the online insurance market…