A renewed partnership agreement was signed in HCM City on March 4 by GoBear Vietnam and FE Creditto drive greater financial inclusion to Vietnam’s market. This partnership is one of the key projects for GoBear Vietnam this year, aligned with their growth strategy.
In this partnership, GoBear Vietnam will synergise with FE Credit’s award-winning end-to-end digital lending mobile app $NAP, which offers loans to consumers with the ability to get real time loan pre-approval within 15 minutes. The new GoBear powered by FE Creditapp will further streamline GoBear Vietnam’s user journey and provide millions of unbanked Vietnamese people better access to unsecured loans. This app employs new technologies including Facial Recognition, AI algorithms, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), Voice Based Virtual Assistant, Speech to Text, eSignature, and more, to enable the lender to extend credit to unbanked consumers while keeping risk in check.
Serving the unbanked across the region
GoBear, Vietnam’s leading financial comparison website, is focused on improving financial inclusion to sustaineconomic development. Bao Nguyen, Country director of GoBear Vietnam, said: “Improving financial inclusion and serving the unbanked is very important in an emerging market like Vietnam. They have limited access to mainstream financial services, which is a significant problem as it can substantially restrict the flow of capital to would-be entrepreneurs and small businesses. With the new GoBear powered by FE Credit app, I believe we can help to improve financial accessibility for our users.”
Partnership is one of the key projects for GoBear Vietnam this year, and it’s well-aligned with its growth strategy and company value, adding more products for comparison, help users to make better informed choices and improve their quality of life through easier access to basic financial products. For GoBear, the collaboration with FE Credit is the first strategic partnership initiative to go to market, reinforcesits commitment to find innovative solutions to local challenges in increasing financial inclusion.
“This is our first strategic partnership of its kind in the region and Vietnam. Our ambition is to become the financial products supermarket of Asia,” said Adrian Chng, CEO of GoBear. Financial inclusion remains a challenge for many of the emerging markets in Asia. Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, represent some of the largest unbanked population in the region, where financial services is still limited for up to 75 percent of the population. Part of the company’s strategy this year is to actively grow its product breadth and services regionally. “We want to demonstrate that we’re an innovation leader in Asia’s Fintech space, and we’re doing so with products that will help increase financial access for millions of unbanked consumers in SEA. We’re set to grow this year in volume of users and product offerings,” he added.
Unsecured loans are an important source of credit for the unbanked who are unable to gain access to the traditional banking system. Now GoBear’s users can compare different products to make better informed choices on the website, before applying for a loan that best suits their needs either from FE Credit via the new app, or any other lenders conveniently and very transparent. This is the confirmation that technology companies and traditional financial providers can collaborate well to better serve the customers, with each party utilising their own strengths.
Financial inclusion mission for Vietnam
Besides partnering, GoBear is initiating some new technology innovations in 2019 to continue last year’s development. Towards the end of last year, the company announced a partnership with the smartphone-based alternative credit scoring provider CredoLab to develop the Easy Apply app, which will utilise smartphone data to generate alternative credit scorecards that can accompany applications for credit cards and loans. These alternative scorecards can increase applicants’ chances of approvals on such products.
The Easy Apply app can help their unbanked users to apply for loans and credit cards from different banks and consumer finance companies. The app will use non-traditional data and predictive data analytics, which are gathered from the users’ unique digital footprint, to produce highly predictive digital credit scorecards that enable them to access financial services.”This is a companywide initiative, and also a key project for Vietnam this year. Our main direction for Vietnam is to improve financial inclusion through technology innovations,” Bao, Country director of GoBear Vietnam said.
Currently, CIC is the only official source of credit scorecard information. The unavailability of credit risk information is a significant problem as it can substantially restrict the flow of capital to the people in need. And there is still a big pool of unbanked consumers in Vietnam with no formal credit histories on the CIC. They have little in terms of a personal banking history from which lenders, including banks and finance companies, can determine creditworthiness should they request a loan.The Easy Apply app willprovide applicants from all demographicsincluding the unbanked who have little to no traditional credit history greater access to financial services such as credit cards, personal loans, and other forms of unsecured credit. For financial institutions, this app will help them to further expand their pool of customers while keeping risks in check.
As GoBear evolved after a few years coming to the market, now the company directs itself to be the supermarket where various digital financial products will be offered to consumers. While the traditional financial institutions do not fully tap the unbanked segment due to the lack of traditional credit history,GoBear brings its technology solution to fill this gap. GoBear’s data centre will be able to impact both the consumer and financial institutions to match them together, and also supply the alternative credit scores of the borrowers. The company hopes to increase the digital financial penetration by tapping intodigital lending, digital insurance brokerage, etc.,and better matching lenders and borrowers.
Businesswise, GoBear Vietnam has signed more than 20 partners and achieved over 200 percent YOY revenue growth, and has landed 10 million visitors on their website www.gobear.com/vnafter two years of operation.As of this moment, GoBear Vietnam offers eight products on their comparison platform, which are Credit Cards, Personal Loans, Travel Insurance, Fixed Deposits, Bank Accounts, Home Loan, Home Equity Loan, and Car Loan. The company’s directors firmly believe that GoBear is now one of the most trusted financial comparison platforms for the Vietnamese people.
Digital financial products marketplace
This year GoBear will also bring more initiatives to utilise the data to fulfill their ambition to be a marketplace of financial products. This database is believed to be very valuable to financial institutions who are expanding their market with different types of data utilisation.
Bao shared the further development of the company in Vietnam: “Our plan is to keep adding and improving new products and features for our users, especially the unbanked. Starting with our strategic partnership with FE Credit of which we have just announced.The next key target for this year will be to successfully launch and seamlessly integrate the new Easy Apply app into our users’ journey. I believe with these initiatives, GoBear will not only enable our users to access useful and affordable financial products that meet their needs in a timely manner, but also help our partners to better serve the unbanked.”
GoBear Vietnam also has a plan for life insurance products. Different from other types of general insurance, consumers often find it quite hard and time consuming to search for the right life insurance plan, especially when the benefits of more than one family member have to be taken into consideration.Later this year, the company will introduce a free and transparent comparison of life insurance plans available to the market, and users can find a range of products that match their specific needs in just a few seconds.
Commenting on the partnership with GoBear, Kalidas Ghose, vice Chair and CEO of FE Credit said, “We are delighted to be renewing this partnership with GoBear Vietnam which started in 2017. The partnership demonstrates FE Credit and GoBear Vietnam’s unwavering commitment to our customers in Vietnam. As Vietnam’s economy continues to thrive, we see many opportunities to collaborate with financial technology companies to accelerate financial inclusion for the country. We are proud to play a role in Vietnam’s growth story.”
