Lender receives certification for practices that reflect and promote consumer protection.
The F88 Business JSC has received the Smart Campaign’s Smart Certification for practices that reflect and promote consumer protection.
The certification represents a milestone in F88′s customer-centric approach. In 2018 it announced its brand positioning strategy of responsible lending with a commitment to providing customers with professional services and sustainable lending products to help them realise their needs.
All corporate culture activities are organised to promote customer service as part of F88′s core value of customer satisfaction as the key measurement to continuously develop and improve customer services.
Phung Anh Tuan, Chair and CEO of F88, said the certification is the result and recognition of the continuous efforts of the F88 management team and its employees to create a safe, transparent, and friendly lending environment. “When using F88′s services, customer information is protected with high confidentiality and we also want to create more opportunities for customer access to financial services and to ensure customers get the loan that best fits their ability to pay, creating peace of mind and trust,” he said.
He added that to remain certified, F88 must meet 100 per cent of Smart Campaign indicators and comply with them throughout the certification’s four-year validity. “Thus, this is not only an achievement certificate; it also is a statement of our commitment”, he said.
Isabelle Barres, director of Smart Campaign, affirmed that F88 successfully demonstrated its commitment to treating the people it serves fairly. “It has contributed to setting a new standard for the inclusive finance industry that puts customer care and protection at the centre,” she added.
The Smart Campaign is a global effort to unite financial leaders around a common goal: to keep clients as the driving force of the industry. It is endorsed and sponsored by the world’s largest financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the IFC, and the MasterCard Foundation.
Over the course of ten years, the Smart Campaign has received over 5,000 endorsements from individuals and investors, regulators, financial service providers, fintechs, academics, and other members of the financial inclusion community.
In 2013, it organised the Client Protection Certification Programme to help financial institutions demonstrate their commitment to elevate the client voice and convene partners to effect change at the national level. The Campaign has certified over 115 organisations in 40 countries and territories around the world, including Community Economic Ventures (the Philippines), PGMF (Myanmar), Komida (Indonesia), and Arohan Financial Services (India).
Established in 2013, F88 is the largest secured lending chain in Vietnam, with 110 branches nationwide; doubling in number compared to 2018. It operates 43 branches in Hanoi, 62 in HCM City, and five in northern provinces. It disbursed an accumulated VND873 billion ($37.6 million) in 2018 and is expected to disburse VND1.837 trillion ($79.2 million) this year, an increase of nearly VND1 trillion ($43.1 million).
F88 has been providing convenient financial access to a large number of customers. It is expected that in 2021 it will expand to 300 branches and successfully be listed on the stock exchange.
