VNBA joined hands with Tradepass to orchestrate Vietnam's most disruptive fintech show

With a projected value of $18 billion by 2024, the country’s fintech market is at an all-time high. While acknowledging the shift in consumer behavior, Vietnam has welcomed myriad fintech advances in its financial ecosystem. Digital payments, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, cryptocurrencies, blockchain-based solutions, investment tech, point of sales and a host of other streams have proliferated in the recent years.

While World Financial Innovation Series (WFIS), organised by Tradepass,has always been at the heart of exposing these fast-evolving markets wherein also facilitating numerous organisations to capitalize on the same, this time the platform made its entry to Hanoi on 4 – 5 April 2023 at Intercontinental Hanoi Landmark72.

The event had a one-of-a-kind start and received phenomenal attention from numerous media houses as it was jointly opened through a ribbon cutting ceremony, that was graced by the top officials from Vietnam Banks Association (VNBA), State Bank of Vietnam, World Bank, Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC and Tradepass.

Vietnam Banks Associationand Digital Pilipinas were the supporting partners for the event and garnered massive recognition for the platform in the country and also the entire region that’s Southeast Asia.

Acting as the bridgebetween members and state agenciesfor the further development of credit institutions has always been VNBA’s top priority and WFIS emerged as a very crucial step in supporting VNBA’s vision as it brought together the country’s leading Banks, Insurance and Micro-Finance Institutions under one roof.

Talking about the importance of the event, Dr Nguyen Quoc Hung (Secretary General, Vietnam Banks Association) expressed, “The event is meaningful and useful for all financial organisations, Banks in Vietnam can access knowledge from around the world through shared experiences that will aid banks in having a more comprehensive identity and will fully prepare them in finding solutions for digital transformation in the fastest and most effective way.”

Ketut Ariadi Kusuma (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank) one of the key speakers at WFIS 2023 - Vietnam, shared his views about the event, “WFIS is a very interesting event. I can see a lot of attention from the industry players and policy makers.”

The two-day event showcased what’s currently driving Vietnam’s FSI through multiple knowledge sharing sessions that were powered by the industry’s most renowned thought leaders. It also shed light on the latest, most trending developments that are shaping to be the areas attracting maximum investor focus.

The Deputy Director of Information Technology Department from the State Bank of Vietnam, Doan Thanh Hai expressed why the event was a great platform for the financial services industry, “This year’s conference paved a great opportunity for us to discuss the most exciting technology application development issues in the banking & financial sector such as cloud computing of centralized digital currency, artificial intelligence and blockchain.”

The entire venue was swamped with 500+ top FSI professionals who showed a very keen interest at the Exhibition Hall that was decked with a very impressive line-up of technology providers and related cutting-edge fintech products. The line-up included Nucleus Software, Perfios Software Solution, MoEngage, Clayfin, OutSystems, Xebia, Genesys, NGS Telecommunication and Equipment Joint Stock Company, Alibaba Cloud, FPT Telecom International, iProov, AppSealing, SmartNet Technology Co., Ltd., MineSec, Contour, Parasoft and VietNet Distribution Joint Stock Company (VietNet Distribution JSC.).

Saurabh Madan (GM & VP - SEA, ANZ & Japan, MoEngage) gave his take on the quality of delegates at the event, he said, “Vey high quality of delegates to start off with, you had some strong movers and shakers from the Vietnam market on stage and a lot of people from the audience also are from different banks, so well done on the quality of delegates.”

The curation of topics for the conference was completely on point and paved the future road map for the country’s FSI. Some of the topics from the conference included, ‘Revolutionizing of Digital Lending’, ‘Big Data in Banking’, ‘Streamlining Legacy System in Banking’, ‘Unlocking the Speed and Innovation of Cloud in the Digital Transformation Journey’ and ‘Digital Transformation in Insurance’.

Nucleus Software’s Head of Global Marketing, Ashish Khanna expressed his enthusiasm for WFIS, “It is a great platform for us to connect with industry peers as well as with different banks and financial institutions and it’s an opportunity to share our global experience of managing more than $500 billion worth of retail assets and corporate assets. So, it is a great event and we are privileged to be here.”

Kalidas Ghose (Chief Executive Officer, VPBank SMBC Finance Company Limited (FE Credit)) during his session gave an amazing insight about how his organisation tried to simplify digital banking, he said, “We actually went into customer’s life to find out how a digital bank can be embedded in his life rather than us trying to prompt him to use digital banking.”

Some of the key speakers from the event included: DR NGUYEN QUOC HUNG, Secretary General, Vietnam Banks Association; KETUT ARIADI KUSUMA, Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank; PHAM THI NGUYET NGA, Deputy CEO, Chief Data Scientist, TNEX; JOHNSON POH, Chief Data Officer, VPBank; DOAN THANH HAI, Deputy Director of Information Technology Department, SBV; DR LUC CAN, Chief Economist, Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC; NGUYEN MANH KHANG, Deputy CEO, CIO, Mcredit; KANISHK UPADHYAY, Executive Vice President, Techcombank; KALIDAS GHOSE, Chief Executive Officer, VPBank SMBC Finance Company Limited (FE Credit); MICHAL SKALICKY, Chief Customer Officer, Home Credit Vietnam.