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Listen and subscribe to “Vietnam Innovators” in Vietnamese: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube.
Global banking is going through a fundamental shift, amplified by the ongoing health crisis and the continuous rise and utilization of technological innovations. The financial services industry has let go of some of its traditional methods and practices, and developed new ways to make the whole banking experience easier and more convenient for customers. Thus, the digital revolution of banking.
But unstoppable and inevitable this revolution may be, not everyone is poised to establish digital infrastructure that can handle the enormous changes in an increasingly competitive landscape. Vietnam, which has proven its resilience in the face of a pandemic, has just started its own digital revolution. Although still in their early stages, the application of more advanced technologies in providing financial products and services to Vietnamese customers, and the usage of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics are already making remarkable impact. But there’s still so much more to be done.
Industry expert Gunneet Singh Bally arrived in Vietnam in 2012 to help bridge the workforce gap, boost digitalization and fintech integration in the local banking sector. With his experiences working for banking heavyweights and multinationals such as American Express, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries and Vietnam Prosperity Bank, Gunneet is all for reinventing banking for the digital era.
Now that he leads neo digital bank, Übank, as its Head of Products & Customer Engagement, Gunneet is making retail banking more customer-centric, like how it should be. Powered by FE Credit and VPBank, Übank is a technological bank which gives customers access to high yield current accounts and instant access to lending products. Übank is all about getting more benefits and doing a lot less of banking work: automatic saving that earns high interest rate from all money staying in the account and few-swipe-away access to instant loans.
Shift to online-only banking
Offering unlimited cashback 1% for transactions, high saving interest of up to +4.0%, complementary insurance benefit and free loan processing, Übank creates a hassle-free online-only banking for Vietnamese. It aims to become at the core of the financial development agenda in the country, a mission not too impossible to attain.
Over the past nine years of playing an active role in modernizing the local banking sector as Head of Cards Business at VPBank, Gunneet has seen not just Vietnamese people’s growing willingness to adapt to the changes in the banking industry, but most importantly the surfacing of opportunities that made credit cards and online-only banking a more comfortable choice for many.
“With the advent of everything going digital, from booking flight tickets to ordering on Shopee, people have seen the need to apply for a card. Now the market is expanding at a decent pace. Combined with the very fact that many banks are now looking at cards seriously, the macro conditions and the digital usage opportunities in the city or anywhere, things are pushing ahead,” says Gunneet.