Hanoi, Vietnam – Despite digital advertising seeing a boom in the Vietnamese market, perception among Vietnamese consumers says otherwise, stating that they are getting tired of digital advertisements, the latest survey from data and analytics company YouGov shows.

According to the survey, around 43% of Vietnamese consumers find online ads annoying. On the contrary, around 25% of the respondents agreed that online advertising is interesting while 30% say that online advertising is creative. Despite the positive feedback, around 47% of consumers said that they always skip or want to skip online ads.

The survey noted that too much online advertising can drown out quality content for businesses. As such, online ads need to be exceptionally creative to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of consumers.

Thue Quist Thomasen, CEO at YouGov Vietnam, said that their survey also showed that even though most people remember seeing online ads, they are significantly less likely to recall clicking on ads or buying products after seeing ads.

“In my view, the online marketing industry in Vietnam is largely, and fairly, preoccupied with tracking ad frauds and viewability. But marketers often pay insufficient attention to the metrics that truly matter, such as impact and quality, which are the key elements that drive advertising success. Why make sure people can view an ad, if the ads are boring and annoying,” Thomasen said.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – OPEC Fund, the intergovernmental development finance institution established by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has announced that will be granting a US$35m loan to local bank Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) to facilitate access to finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and women-owned businesses.

Said loan complements a US$80m loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as a US$20m trade limit and a US$85m IFC-arranged syndicated loan from international lenders.

SMEs account for 98% of all enterprises and 50% of employment in Vietnam and are the backbone of the country’s economy. Women-owned businesses have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to reduced access to financial services and business interruptions resulting from obligations such as childcare during lockdowns.

OPEC Fund Director-General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa said, “We are pleased to partner with SeABank and join forces with international lenders to provide financing to support Vietnam’s sustainable economic growth. Increasing access to finance for SMEs, especially women-owned businesses, will help reduce inequalities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Meanwhile, Le Thu Thuy, general director at SeABank, commented, “Supporting SMEs and women-owned enterprises has always been a priority of SeABank’s development strategy and remains our responsibility as these enterprises are facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

She added, “SeABank is honoured to have won the trust and financial support of the OPEC Fund, a respected multilateral development finance institution. This illustrates SeABank’s reputation and ability to access international capital. The OPEC Fund’s financing will enhance SeABank’s capacity to support the development of women-owned businesses as well as develop gender-smart actions.”

Vietnam has continued to ramp up efforts to finance its growing SME population, including the Asian Development Bank signing a US$25m loan to TPBank.

California, USA – Vemanti Group, a California-based holding company which helps develop emerging technology companies with a focus on fintech and blockchain applications, is preparing to build one of the first small-to-medium enterprise (SME) neobanking solutions in Vietnam. In a recent announcement by Vemanti, the group shared that it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent with Vietnam Public Joint-stock Commercial Bank (PVcomBank), which signals its strategic move into the digital banking space.

The LOI is a major step forward on an integrated bilateral formal partnership for Vemanti Group and PVcomBank, which announced their first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to create joint financial projects in Q3 of 2021. PVcomBank is a fully licensed and regulated bank in Vietnam with comprehensive core banking products and services. Recently, the company has worked to advance its digital banking segment, offering new and easier to use banking features to its large customer base.

Vemanti said it will be utilizing PVcomBank’s industry-leading banking expertise to provide SMEs in Vietnam with an innovative digital-only financial solution via PVcomBank’s existing core banking system. According to the group, the Vemanti-branded digital bank platform will allow customers to be seamlessly onboarded online, eliminating the need to visit a physical branch, while giving them access to tailored banking services and financial products embedded to their business operations.

“We’re excited to partner with the Vemanti Group as we look toward the future of banking and work to promote the development of innovative products and services,” stated Ha Viet Nguyen, deputy CEO from PVcomBank.

“By integrating our industry-leading technology with other forward-thinking organizations like Vemanti Group, we can improve financial accessibility and access with fewer roadblocks to entry than traditional banking provider,” added Nguyen.

Meanwhile, Tan Tran, CEO of Vemanti Group, commented that the partnership with PVcomBank allows the group to make major inroads into digital banking, providing underserved SMEs with more streamlined and efficient products compared to the traditional banking structure. 

“We’re looking forward to collaborating with PVcomBank and working together to advance the future of banking in Vietnam and Southeast Asia,” said Tran.

Vemanti shared that it is planning to continue its financial service expansion into additional countries in Southeast Asia in the near future.

Vietnam – Vietnamese digital marketing major Blueseed Group has invested a 7-digit figure in the local online retailer startup Greenoly.

Blueseed Group said it will help with the transformation of the online retailer into Vietnam’s next retail champion by transferring its leadership, marketing technology expertise, and what is most important – its vast audience and consumer data expertise.

As part of the investment, Blueseed Group’s CEO Ho Nguyen will join Greenoly as co-CEO and board member, leveraging his career experience that includes senior executive roles within international marketing and tech companies. Nguyen has successfully led Blueseed since the group’s founding, evolving from the leading digital video ad network to today’s diverse focus on the AdTech, MarTech and Data services driving success in today’s digital marketplace. He will focus on leading the MarTech transformation of Greenoly. 

Greenoly is a vertical online retail startup focused on health and wellness products launched in 2020. While such businesses can thrive easily in Vietnam due to strong demand growth for health and wellness-related products in the short term, the momentum isn’t always transformed into long-term growth and success. Blueseed Group Chairwoman Nga Nguyen knows this all too well.

Nga Nguyen brings with her two decades of business and investment experience, including her startup-to-unicorn experience with VNG – Vietnam’s first digital unicorn which contributes to her intricate knowledge in creating success stories in the online space. It is this perspective that led her and the Blueseed Group to invest in driving Greenoly from a small online retailing startup into a MarTech powered retailing platform and in turn to be one of Vietnam’s next retail champions.

Advocating the strategy of Blueseed Group toward Greenoly’s investment, transformation, and growth, Nga Nguyen said, “Leveraging Blueseed’s deep experience in Data and MarTech services and solutions we look forward to developing the most cost-efficient model to acquire new consumers across multiple use cases and grow Greenoly’s market standing. Data initiatives are highly strategic, long-tail investments that impact nearly all areas of the retail business.”

She adds, “Retailers, more than any other industry, feel the need for better customer data solutions. Greenoly already possesses enormous amounts of customer data that lives in dozens of different online and offline tools and systems, but in a few years, it will be a much, much bigger volume of data. Therefore, the top priority will be for Blueseed to enhance retail business with our market-proven Customer Data Platform that can unify data, generate customer insights and scale their marketing efforts via machine learning algorithms to enhance the effectiveness of their most mature and complex marketing campaigns.”

Nga Nguyen further said, “The next big steps for Greenoly will be nurturing and strengthening the loyalty of these consumers and catering to their new needs as they develop. The final game-changer will be developing Greenoly’s 5-star personalized consumer experience. Customer centricity is the new game in town, it requires online retailers to prioritize personalizing the customer experience. To win in this new competitive space retailers need to increase the personal relevance and experience based on customer preferences. This highly personalized experience also needs to be maintained across the new omnichannel world leveraging new technologies to better serve customers in whichever environment they prefer to engage in.”

The Vietnamese Health and Wellness space has proven to be a fertile space. A recent report released by BritCham Vietnam found that the segment is valued at over 13t VND (over 570 million USD) with over 13% annual growth. It also found that the growth is driven by several key consumer groups including a fast-growing middle class, women turning to health supplements for beauty, sexual and overall female health purposes, growing numbers of younger consumers looking to improve vision and memory, and a growing elderly population demanding relevant health supplements.

Events like the Covid-19 pandemic are accelerating the shift towards e-commerce. Helping this will be more quick delivery services as more customers enjoy the convenience of the doorstep experience. Today, consumers have high expectations for how they want to shop, demanding frictionless, fast, and comfortable shopping experiences 24/7. The retail-champions of tomorrow will be the ones who focus on just-in-time delivery, plan successfully using the right customer decision trees and proper promotional messaging based on personalized propositions. All of these can only be achieved progressively by investing increasingly in tech-driven retail business.

Manila, Philippines – The Asian Development Bank (ADB), the regional bank headquartered in Manila, has announced that it has signed a $25m loan with Vietnam’s Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPB) to expand access to finance of women-owned and -led small and medium-sized enterprises (WSMEs) in Vietnam. The project is also cofinanced by DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG) for $25m. 

Furthermore, the loan is accompanied by a $750,000 technical assistance grant to help TPB better meet the needs of WSMEs. The grant will be used to build TPB’s capacity to lend to WSMEs, hire staff, and promote its services to female borrowers. It will also enable TPB to use digital systems to analyze the underserved WSME market. The grant is funded by the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), which is hosted by the World Bank Group.

“We are very pleased to partner with TPB and We-Fi to support WSMEs, which are important channels to increase women’s participation in Vietnam’s economic development,” said ADB’s Director General for Private Sector Operations Suzanne Gaboury.

“COVID-19 has severely affected many businesses, and initiatives such as this loan and grant will support particularly underserved female borrowers by helping TPB develop systems and procedures to improve their access to finance,” adds Gaboury.

ADB shares data that as of 2018, the majority of businesses in Vietnam are classified as SMEs, supporting 38% of the country’s employment and generating 40% of gross domestic product. But their access to finance is still a challenge, with only 37% of WSMEs able to obtain loans from banks, according to a 2017 study. 

“ADB, DEG, and TPB’s goals are uniquely aligned especially in our mutual support of WSMEs,” said TPB’s Chief Executive Officer Nguyen Hung.

 “We will continue to leverage our strength in digital banking to tailor products and services for WSMEs and plan to increase supply chain financing and support services, liquidity, and digital banking products to reach underserved customers,” added Nguyen Hung. 

TPB is one of the leading joint-stock banks in Vietnam. Currently, it has digital platforms targeted to help meet the needs of its retail and SME customers by offering innovative and customized products.

Vietnam – VietJet Air, Vietnam’s international low-cost airline, has been named as one of the top 10 safest low-cost airlines for 2022. This is based on evaluation from AirlineRatings, a content hub for relevant airline and travel information.

In the second half of 2021, the airline was also named by the media hub as the Best Ultra Low-Cost Airline in 2021. 

For the current 2022 list, VietJet Air is joined by airlines Allegiant Air, easyJet, Frontier Airlines, Jetstar Group, Jetblue, Ryanair, and Volaris, as well as Westjet and Wizz Air, which is unveiled as a collective list rather than with particular rankings.

According to AirlineRatings, it monitored a total of 385 global airlines for the top list. AirlineRatings uses a 7-star point system where 7 indicates optimum safety level for a particular airline. Airlines are evaluated against a list of criteria such as incident records over two years, crash records over five years, fleet age, results of audits conducted by the governing body of aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), and other aviation authorities.

VietJet Managing Director Dinh Viet Phuong commented, “We are proud to keep up with the top safety ranking in the global aviation industry. We have committed to carrying out reliable flight operation while expanding our flight network and diversifying services to provide the best flying experiences to our passengers in the coming time.”

AirlineRatings Editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas commented that while the airline is extremely clever in its marketing, it has a very smart and serious business plan that “brings affordable travel to millions.” 

“VietJet is especially recognized for massive investment into new fleet, system upgrade, and technology adoption to ensure safety in operation and meet passengers’ evolving and convenient flight demand,” said Thomas.

Meanwhile, Air New Zealand was hailed as the world’s safest airline for 2022. This was followed by global airlines from the Middle East, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, while air carriers from APAC such as Singapore Airlines, Qantas, EVA Air, and Virgin Australia, and Cathay Pacific Airways, also entered the main list.

Hanoi, Vietnam – The Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank, also known as SeABank, has tapped cloud services provider Google Cloud to enhance the service quality and customer experiences delivered on its SeAMobile/SeANet digital banking platform. 

Through Google Cloud’s enterprise-grade technologies, SeABank can optimize costs, strengthen security and accelerate innovation. In addition, SeABank will use Google Cloud’s secure, flexible and scalable infrastructure solutions, such as Migrate for Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine, to migrate critical workloads from its on-premises data center to the cloud and build and deploy cloud-native applications. 

More importantly, SeABank will lean on Google Cloud’s capabilities in AI, machine learning and data analytics to acquire better understanding of its customers and create valuable new services to meet their future needs.

Le Thu Thuy, general director at SeABank, said, “The cooperation with Google Cloud is one of the crucial steps taken by SeABank to leverage industry-leading infrastructure and AI capabilities at speed and scale, to optimize our capacity to deploy customer-centric products and services, and enhance the overall digital and mobile banking experience.”

Having integrated AI into digital banking services on SeAMobile, as well as across its IT systems for customer service, operations, financial management and risk management, the core pillars of SeABank’s digital transformation strategy for the next five years will include end-to-end digitalization and providing hyper personalized customer experiences.

Meanwhile, Ruma Balasubramanian, managing director for Southeast Asia at Google Cloud, commented, “SeABank’s choice of Google Cloud as its primary cloud provider reinforces the Bank’s commitment toward using technology to advance how it interacts with and serves its customers – from anywhere and at any time. The bank can now amplify its abilities to build new capabilities and services, quickly deliver a predictive customer experience, and leapfrog into becoming the bank of the future.”

Bangkok, Thailand – Global media and digital marketing communications company dentsu in Asia-Pacific has announced that Sanjay Bhasin, current CEO of dentsu in Vietnam and Myanmar, has now added the role of CEO for dentsu Thailand to his leadership position. He commences his new role on 1 January 2022.

Said appointment is central to dentsu Asia-Pacific’s strategy to strengthen the market clusters and bring Thailand into its next phase of growth.

Bhasin returns to Thailand, having spent nine years running Y&R Southeast Asia out of Thailand before joining dentsu in 2018. He will be splitting his time equally between Thailand and Vietnam. 

This appointment follows after the retirement of Khun Amornsak Sakpuaram, CEO at dentsu Thailand and executive chairman at dentsu MB Thailand. Having been with the dentsu network for 37 years, Khun Amornsak will assume an advisory role from 1 January 2022 until the end of Q1 2022.

Speaking about his appointment, Bhasin said, “I am excited to be returning to Thailand to lead the dentsu business. Khun Amornsak leaves the organization in an excellent position to build growth from, and I am looking forward to working with him over the coming months. Thailand is a fast-paced and dynamic market. We have a first-class team with a clear vision and market acumen to ensure we deliver the best and most integrated experiences for consumers on our client’s behalf. I can’t wait to get started.”

Meanwhile, Sakpuaram commented, “I have enjoyed every moment of my 37 years at dentsu Thailand. I never expected to still be here when I walked through the doors in 1984, but it is testament to the nature of this incredible business that I have stayed so long. We have achieved a huge amount together as a network.”

He added, “We have never stopped innovating or delivering distinctiveness to enhance capabilities in the business ecosystem, enabling the growth of our client’s brands. Given his extensive experience in the market, Sanjay is the natural choice to lead the Thailand business and I wish Sanjay, and all my colleagues at dentsu international Thailand and further afield, the very best for the future.” 

Wendy Clark, global CEO, dentsu international said, “Sanjay Bhasin is a familiar and trusted industry veteran and the right leader for our next phase of growth. Under Sanjay’s leadership, our Vietnam business has built a formidable reputation as the most successful integrated agency in the market. We are confident in the continued success of dentsu Thailand under Sanjay’s leadership. Khun Amornsak has been the driving force behind dentsu Thailand’s growth. We thank him for his years of dedication and service and wish him a long and happy retirement.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – It should be noted by now that Southeast Asia’s e-commerce landscape has been on a steady growth, indicating how the pandemic has vastly contributed to the accelerated digital adoption and the expansion of the industry in the region.

The latest data from e-commerce aggregator iprice analyzed the performance of the top e-commerce companies in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam to determine which e-commerce sites are holding the most of the market share in the said markets, and which of them have been successful in drawing social engagement.

According to their data for Q3, Singapore-based e-commerce platform Shopee takes the lead across these three markets. In Malaysia, the site gets around 57.5 million monthly visits, while 61.2 million monthly visits for Thailand, with 77.8 million monthly visits in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Lazada takes second in the Malaysia and Thailand market, each having 14.2 million and 37.9 million monthly visits respectively. Vietnam, on the other hand, has its own e-commerce platform Thegioididong.com taking second, with 50.9 million monthly visits.

“These top sites have been [leveraging people] who are actively purchasing items online during the pandemic. They have significantly focused on diversifying their features and marketing campaigns to engage tech-savvy consumers, which consequently increased both their sales and traffic,” noted iPrice.

Meanwhile, the data also noted that local sites rank in the top three. PGMall (Malaysia), Central Online (Thailand), and Tiki (Vietnam) have done quite well in establishing themselves in their respective markets.

According to the report, the cross-country collaboration between PGMall and JD Worldwide, for instance, has encouraged local sellers to offer unique local brands to the Chinese market. With access to China’s extensive market, PGMall’s platform has become one of the most prominent domestic online businesses in Malaysia. 

Meanwhile, Tiki, which holds 13% of Vietnam’s e-commerce market share. They signed an exclusive partnership with insurance company AIA Vietnam for 10 years. Due to this, policyholders may manage their insurance accounts and seek health insurance solutions and claims through the Tiki website.

In terms of engagement with e-commerce brands on social media, Malaysians engage the most with e-commerce-related posts accounting for 44% of the total social engagements, followed byVietnamese users with 36% of the engagements while Thai users accounted for 20%.

“As these e-commerce platforms continue to pursue strategic partnerships, promotions, and social engagements, the future of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry is looking bright,” the company concluded.

Hanoi, Vietnam – The data-driven loyalty platform in Vietnam, Society Pass (SoPa), has announced that it has closed a Series C funding round, which will help in accelerating its growth and acquisition strategy in the SEA and SA region.

Society Pass is a loyalty and data marketing ecosystem that operates multiple e-commerce and lifestyle platforms across its key markets. Its business model focuses on collecting user data through the expected circulation of its universal loyalty points.

Society Pass plans to expand its market presence by harnessing the untapped potential of SEA and SA, regions which according to the Digital 2021 Global Overview Report by HootSuite and We Are Social stand to see tremendous growth. SoPa believes that developing countries are only now experiencing a surge in digital adoption, with large potentials for future growth.

Moreover, the said funding aims to acquire companies with existing user and merchant bases that can be quickly plugged into the Society Pass ecosystem.

Dennis Nguyen, the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer at Society Pass, shared that the platform’s success up to this point has been built through offering unique value for both consumers and merchants, along with the infrastructure supporting that exchange.

“This new funding will allow us to replicate our success in our target markets and our ongoing aggressive M&A initiatives in the pipeline. We are very grateful to have found strong demand from quality investors that share our vision,” said Nguyen.