Video: How Can a Traditional Bank in Vietnam Nurture Innovations?
Le Thi My Dung, Deputy Director of Consumer Banking, Asia Commercial Bank, talks about how a traditional financial institution can cherish innovations and respond to customer challenges.
Asia Commercial Bank is the largest private bank in Vietnam by assets, its payments business is powered by the WAY4 platform, provided by OpenWay – a global leader in software solutions for card issuing, merchant acquiring, transaction switching, and digital wallets.
How can a bank innovate in Vietnam?
OW: How would you describe Asia Commercial Bank today?
Mrs. Dung: Hello, my name is Dung, and I am working for Asia Commercial Bank in Vietnam. and currently I am Deputy Head of Consumer Banking and Head of Bank Card Center. I have more than 15 years working in the banking industry and at FMCG. So today is a very happy day to be here and to share with you some of my experience that I have and also learn from yours.
As you may know, Asia Commercial Bank is a private bank in Vietnam. Currently we have over 10,000 employees and we have more than 3 million customers across the country in different customer segmentations. In these we are focusing on the innovative customer, the SMEs and also large corporations. Our strategic intent is to try to become the leading retail bank in Vietnam, leading in its own arena of business, including payment services.
What are the challenges your customers face?
OW: What are the challenges your customers face?
Mrs. Dung: Currently we are facing quite a bit of challenges. Network security, trust and lack of legal framework, those are the roadblocks to the digital transformation of the payments industry. As you may know, the population in Vietnam is more than 95 million people. But only 30 percent of the population have a bank account. And very few of them are making online transactions, even though that 70 percent of the population use a smartphone that is connected to the internet. The reason is that the customers do not trust the sellers and the shippers. That is why 90 percent of online transactions are made COD, or cash on delivery, instead of a card payment. So those are very challenging for us. By saying that, I mean that accessibility to the banking system, to banking financial services, are very limited in Vietnam. That is why we are working so hard with our partners, that’s you guys, also other fintechs, other payment processing companies in order to improve the payment landscape in Vietnam. We have the same common enemy to fight which is the cash.
How does Asia Commercial Bank drive innovations?
OW: How does Asia Commercial Bank drive innovations?
Mrs. Dung: Innovation plays an important role in future success. And I do believe that innovation is the key driver of revenue streams for the future. That is why at ACB we invest, and we spend a lot of time to build innovations and coach, both within the bank and a lot of initiatives have been made to all of the companies and to the employees to build an innovation culture. We especially conducted a challenge, we told a committee throughout the company that any single idea, even if it is very small, if you can build on it and make it happen, we will build it to work. So we do have the challenge where the internal employees can also work with outsiders. Maybe they are fintech, they can collaborate with them to make a totally new idea, even if it is crazy. But if you can do it, you can make the dream happen.
What valuable experiences did you gain from OpenWay Club?
OW: What valuable experiences did you gain from OpenWay Club?
Mrs. Dung: This is the fourth time that I have come to OpenWay Club. I'm very delighted to be here because this is a great opportunity for us to share experiences, learn new things, and especially to network with a lot of industry experts. Even though the industry here in Europe is completely different from what we are living now in Asia, the trends, the mindset is the same and we can learn a lot of new things. I think you at OpenWay have a great team, they support very us very well with our operating business, also the new features of the card business, I can totally rely on them to make it happen successfully. So thank you very much for your cooperation.