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Hello reader,
If you want to feel famous, try banking in Vietnam.
It’s not because the average branch treats you like a rockstar by rolling out the red carpet or that paparazzi hang outside ATMs. No, it’s because you’ll have to sign so many documents that you’ll feel like you’re giving autographs.
To get almost anything done at a Vietnamese bank, it feels like you have to sign six or seven documents. And woe betide any customer who dares produce a signature that looks slightly different from their previous visit.
No wonder then that with the country looking to become a more digitalized economy, Niraan de Silva reckons business process automation is an untapped goldmine. Read our featured story today to know why the CEO of Vietnamese fintech unicorn VNLife also sees agritech as a vertical to watch in the country.
Today we look at:
- The next big thing in Vietnamese tech
- IPOs on the way for India’s Flipkart and PhonePe?
- Other newsy highlights include Binance’s native token hitting a record high despite its co-founder’s imprisonment and a US$20 million investment from SID Global Solutions in the Philippines.
Premium summary
Where Vietnam’s tech future lies
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Three of Vietnam’s four unicorns may be fintech firms and the vertical is the most active in the country in terms of investments, but the next big thing in the country’s tech scene may be found elsewhere.
That’s at least according to Niraan de Silva, CEO of Vietnamese fintech unicorn VNLife, who spoke at Tech in Asia’s Saigon Summit about the future of Vietnam’s tech scene.
- Farm focus: De Silva mentioned agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry as verticals with a lot of untapped opportunities. In agritech specifically, despite the “huge amount of underfunded startups with great solutions,” the sector struggles to win the favor of VCs.
- Stack that paper: The VNLife CEO also talked up the opportunities in what he called a “really boring” vertical: business process automation. He said that with Vietnam still a “paper-based economy,” a company that could offer a digital signature solution would have a big opportunity.
- Don’t count out fintech: Fintech sector continues to have a bright future in Vietnam and de Silva said clearer regulations are coming in, including a decree regulating non-cash payments. “Fintech is a highly regulated business. When there is a policy that’s opaque, it makes us very uncomfortable to scale,” de Silva says. To be clear, however, the regulations exist “not to make things easier – it’s to make things more clear.”
Read more: Where Vietnam’s next big thing in tech will come from
IPOs incoming?
Get unfiltered intel from an industry expert on June 13
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