F88 receives $50 million credit via Lending Ark Asia

The move is the second collaboration between F88 and Lending Ark Asia, bringing the total lending limit granted to $100 million.

“This additional funding will be employed to fuel F88’s growth strategy,” said Phung Anh Tuan, chairman and CEO of F88. “With this funding, F88 aims to offer standardised, easy, and transparent financial services to the mass unbanked and underbanked borrowers in the Vietnamese market."

"We are confident that our products and services will continue to enhance the financial capability of our customers, thereby making a positive contribution to the overall development of the Vietnamese economy,” Tuan added.

Lending Ark Asia is a private credit fund that applies a comprehensive credit underwriting process to its investments. The firm assesses factors such as market potential, business strategy, risk management capabilities, regulatory compliance, service quality, and social impact. The approval of the additional $50 million loan demonstrates Lending Ark Asia’s confidence in F88 business prospects and the potential of the underbanked lending market in Vietnam.

Despite the challenges faced in 2023, F88’s business performance remained stable, and revenue in the first half of the year increased by 52 per cent on-year.

As of June 2023, F88 has seen growth of 30 per cent in the total number of customers compared to 2022 and the customer satisfaction rate is 89 per cent. The cost-to-income ratio, excluding provisioning and bad debt write-offs, during the first half of 2023 experienced a 16 per cent reduction compared to the same period in 2022.

Another highlight is the consistency in maintaining trust with bondholders by paying full interest and in-principal on bonds on time. In the first half of 2023, F88 paid VND1.25 trillion ($51.9 million) in-principal on bonds due to investors. FiinRatings has continued to assign a credit rating of BBB- to F88.

Explaining the lack of profitability in the first half of 2023, Tuan said that it was largely attributed to higher risk costs as the company adopted a more conservative provisioning policy for bad debts than usual. Regarding market potential, based on the positive economic forecasts for the second half of 2023, F88 expects to continue to grow its business steadily and seize opportunities to expand its customer base to accelerate growth.

Consumer finance retains attractiveness Despite the resurgence of the pandemic, investors still remain upbeat about consumer finance and pawn chain businesses in Vietnam, which are considered among the most attractive loan segments.

F88 targets to go public in 2024 to reach $1 billion valuation Phung Anh Tuan, chairman cum CEO of F88 – a major pawnshop chain in Vietnam – revealed that the company is aiming for a market valuation of roughly $1 billion if its plan to go public in 2024.

F88 raises $50 million in Series C funding round F88 Investment JSC announced that it successfully raised a Series C investment of $50 million. The two main investors in this round are Vietnam-Oman Investment Fund and the Mekong Enterprise Fund IV.