The country’s mix of digital natives, SMEs and unbanked residents is spurring the digitalization of corporate and retail banking services.
According to estimates, mobile transactions in Vietnam are expected to increase by 300% between 2021 and 2025, led by an upsurge in mobile payments. Additionally, the World Bank found that only 30.8% of Vietnamese aged 15 or older have a banking account in 2018.
As of end-2019, 98% of the country’s 760,000 enterprises were SMEs, many being digital savvy and seeking financial solutions. Amid this landscape, banks in the country urgently need to reinvent their banking infrastructure to provide customers with value-added services and alternatives across multiple engagement touchpoints, including mobile.
In response, one of the largest joint-stock banks in Vietnam bank has done just that: by doubling down on its digitalization efforts to gain an edge by addressing unmet needs and deepening financial enablement for both Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as the larger population.
Prioritizing customers, data and digital
The Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) has accelerated the digitalization of its retail and corporate omnichannel engagement by partnering with an engagement banking platform.
Such a banking platform is expected to give Techcombank greater agility and time to market its digital strategy. The platform is also expected to allow the bank to create, manage, and optimize its end-to-end customer experience seamlessly as it scales up its digital offerings as a digital-first bank. This will boost financial inclusion in providing a comprehensive set of next generation of financial services for the country’s consumers.
Said the bank’s Chief Digital Officer, Pranav Seth: “Techcombank is embarking on a customer-centric, data and digital-first transformation. Making digital experiences simple, safe and seamless while empowering our staff to advise customers in an extremely personalized manner is a core priority. By transforming our customer engagement platform, we will be able to innovate at speed to create better products, scale our operations, and make it possible to create a seamless banking experience for our customers.”
According to Riddhi Dutta, the Regional Director (ASEAN and South Asia) of Backbase, the banking engagement platform provider selected for the transformation: “As banks rise to meet the increasing demand for online and mobile banking from their customers, they are also opening up new possibilities to work with innovative fintechs and adopt new technologies. Techcombank is leading innovation efforts in the country’s financial sector as it looks to implement a digital-first approach for its core strategy.”