Vietnam’s Leading CEOs meet to discuss ways to improve financial inclusion at GoBear’s annual BearTalk event

The GoBear team at BearTalk

The event was hosted by Bao Nguyen, country director of GoBear Vietnam. He shared how GoBear will integrate new technologies such as Alternative Credit Scoring to help financial institutions better serve the unbanked in Vietnam. He also reinforced GoBear’s commitment to make more positive impacts on the future of financial services in the country.

During the event, Adrian Chng, CEO of GoBear, provided an update on the current state of financial services in Southeast Asia and what collaboration opportunities are in the fintech and finance industries.

“It is an interesting situation because on one hand, we have fast-growing and young populations with high mobile phone penetration across the region, but on the other hand, still relatively low penetration of traditional financial services like credit cards, loans, or insurance," he said. "Because of logistical constraints, traditional distribution forms like physical bank branches cannot play in this space so it was only a matter of time before technology stepped in to improve efficiencies. When that happened, technology allowed financial institutions to access the full spectrum of consumers.”

BearTalk attracted over 30 senior executives from financial services, insurance, and fintech industries

“Technology enables leapfrogging in developing regions like Southeast Asia. These emerging markets have huge potential for fintech companies, especially in Vietnam due to the high tech-savvy population and continuous inflow of capital and interest from global as well as regional funds to support the sector,” said Binh Tran, managing partner at 500 Startups Vietnam, a $14 million Silicon Valley startup accelerator and venture capital fund focusing on Vietnamese startups.

BearTalk is an event hosted annually by GoBear, the leading financial supermarket in Southeast Asia with a vision to contribute to a safe, secure, and sustainable community by improving consumer’s financial health. Since GoBear officially went live in Vietnam in early December 2016, it has served 10 million Vietnamese customers with 220 products across major product categories such as Personal Loan, Credit Card, Travel Insurance, and Home Loan. Recently, GoBear has announced receiving $80 million in funding. The funds will be used for product and tech development as well as to hire key senior executives and expand its network of financial services partners.