Full steam ahead as fintech fever grips Vietnam – The Executive Brief

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Hello reader,

Most of my work days begin with a barrage of fintech-related news. I couldn’t avoid it, even if I wanted to. Whether it’s funding, mergers, or insolvency, the space is abuzz with interest. This is understandable given the countless consumer-facing apps that offer convenient financial solutions and seem to be appearing from thin air.

Fintech is often seen as a recent marriage of financial services and IT. That’s what led me to assume that fintech came to the fore only in the early 2010s (how did I forget about ATMs? 🏧), along with the onset of the smartphone invasion of the world. In fact, fintech has evolved over three distinct time periods, dating all the way back to 1886.

With e-wallets apps across Southeast Asia grabbing most of the headlines, it is easy to forget just how broad and diverse the fintech sector is. Its sheer vastness also helps explain the flood of fintech news. Earned wage access, credit scoring, SME financing, digital lending, insurtech, personal finance, point-of-sale firms, and buy now, pay later all fall under the fintech umbrella.

As the benefits of fintech trickle deep into every Southeast Asian market, in our premium story today, we take a detailed look at the shifting landscape of Vietnam’s fintech sector, which attracted over half a billion dollars in investments last year.

Today we look at:

• The key players in Vietnam’s fintech battleground
• The latest 🦄 in the BNPL space
• Other newsy highlights such as funding rounds across a diverse set of industries, and India’s ban on Garena’s Free Fire

Also, if you’re an entrepreneur looking for funding, fill out this form to get your company featured on our list of fundraising startups.

Premium summary

Vietnam’s fintech bulls

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Even without a clear legal framework guiding Vietnam’s fintech sector, investors remain bullish on its potential, pouring more than US$580 million into this space in 2021 alone. A major contributor was the country’s fintech darling, MoMo, which became a unicorn after its US$200 million series E round led by Japan’s Mizuho Bank in December 2021.

• Origins of SEA’s next super app?: MoMo has cornered more than half the market share in Vietnam’s payments space and is now aiming to become a fintech super app, drawing from the strategies of WeChat and Alipay. To that end, MoMo has added financial services such as credit scoring, savings, and BNPL to its platform.

• Deep-pocketed competition: Commercial banks and telecom operators have moved swiftly to offer digital financial products. In fact, most of their payment apps rank highly in both downloads and active users. Unlike fintech companies, which constantly have to raise funds, commercial banks have far greater resources. In 2021, two of Vietnam’s major commercial banks, Vietcombank and Techcombank, both hit the billion-dollar profit milestone.

BNPL’s latest 🦄