Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Both foreign and domestic fintechfirms are promoting connections with commercial banks to lend unsecuredloans to individuals, and small and micro enterprises as demand for consumerand business loans at the end of the year is rising.

With support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), ValidusVietnam, a leading fintech firm which supports loans for small- andmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore - expanded its operations in theVietnamese market. Accordingly, Validus Vietnam has connected with thousands ofSMEs in the retail, food, healthcare, garment, pharmaceutical and logisticsindustries to promote lending.

According to Validus, to increase its service coverage, it hascooperated with TTC Group and Do Ventures to deploy a capital support solutionfor businesses in the global goods supply chain. Specifically, the threeorganisations have launched the eBIZ super-fast loan platform, which helpsborrowers get unsecured loans within 48 hours for a maximum value of 500million VND per enterprise and a loan term of 12 months.

Dinh Van Binh, managing director of Validus Vietnam, said Validushas so far disbursed more than 1 billion USD to SMEs in Singapore, Vietnam,Indonesia and Thailand.

With the cooperation with TTC Group, and working closely withthe Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association, it is completely feasible forValidus Vietnam to develop small loans for 9,000 members of the Vietnam YoungEntrepreneurs Association, Binh said.

Besides Validus Vietnam, other foreign fintech firms that connectunsecured loans are also expanding cooperation with financial institutionsto promote lending to SMEs.

Singapore-based Funding Societies, for example, after receiving an investmentof 22.5 million USD from VNG in April last year, has developed a system of150,000 agents and retail stores, and accelerated the disbursement of nearly 2billion USD of unsecured loans for SMEs.

Another fintech company, Kredivo, recently cooperated with VietCredit andSendo to provide buy-now-pay-later services for individuals, and small andmicro enterprises in HCM City and other big cities.

Meanwhile, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in mid-November 2022 alsoannounced an investment of 1.3 billion JPY (equivalent to about 10 million USD)in SmartNet JSC to promote SmartPay application development, targetingcustomers who are small and micro enterprises, as well as developing buy-nowand post-paid solutions for about 667,000 sellers in 63 provinces and citiesacross the country.

As foreign fintech firms are proactively cooperating toexpand unsecured consumer loans and fund SMEs, domestic banks and fintechfirms are also in the game.

Techcombank and VPBank are focusing on fintechas they cooperate with Vinshop and DMSpro SmartPay,respectively.

Specifically, Techcombank has built a customer base with about 100 milliongrocery store owners. The Vinshop application is providing a maximum capitaladvance service of 100 million VND to customers throughTechcombank accounts along with expanding to WinMart and WinMart supermarketchains with the support of Masan.

Meanwhile, VPBank has cooperated with DMSpro, Bonbon Shop and SmartPay to focuson startup and household lending. Bonbon Shop acts as a link between themanufacturer and the retailer, SmartPay e-wallet provides payment methods,while VPBank Commcredit is an unsecured lender that uses a customer’scredit score as measured by a digital system.

FE Credit has cooperated with ViettelPay to launch Paynow, an e-wallet with thefunction of buying now and paying later. Meanwhile, HomeCredit chose Tiki tolaunch a Home PayLater product with similar features. And recently, EasyCredit, a consumer lending brand of Electricity Finance Company,has cooperated with MoMo e-wallet to develop unsecured loan products disbursedvia this wallet application.

In the near future, ZaloPay will cooperate with Malaysia’s CIMB to deploypre-buy-post-paid services and provide unsecured loans to small andmicro enterprises.

According to Pham Quang Minh, general director of Mambu Vietnam, in the contextthat SMEs have run out of collateral, alternative forms of lending, such asunsecured lending, will thrive in the next few years. SMEs will turn toborrowing from digital banks and financial companies. According to aMambu survey, about 52% of SMEs in Vietnam will switch to accessing loansfrom companies with better financial solutions while 42% of businesses willchoose companies with better digital services.

Competition to provide unsecured loans based on data digitisationplatforms and multi-party linkages will become increasingly fierce. The trendof coordination between banks and fintech firms, or banks and largecorporations and groups in the supply chain will become more popularas the country’s legal regulations for digital banks and fintechfirms are officially applied, Minh said./.