Visa gives local startups a boost

Le Mai Tung - CEO, EyeQ

EyeQ, the computer vision startup, is honoured to be the winner of Visa’s Everywhere Initiative 2018 for its “Pay With Your Face” product. Applying facial recognition technology, the startup hopes that buying things with a smartphone will become as easy as taking a selfie. Customers can substitute signatures and PINs with their face to make payments without a card.

EyeQ aims to offer customers more options and flexibility with different biometric methods including facial recognition. Besides providing customers with a new experience, its facial recognition system also enhances the security of payment and transaction processes. While a signature can be faked and a PIN is easily forgotten or lost, face-matching systems can be nearly 98 per cent accurate, providing a safe and convenient payment option for consumers.

In Vietnam, where cash-on-delivery is still the norm, EyeQ has tremendous opportunities to grow its business. Vietnam’s burgeoning e-commerce market was valued at $2.7 billion in 2017 and may reach $4.5 billion in 2022. At present, almost 85 per cent of all e-commerce orders are cash-on-delivery, while 14 per cent are digital payments.

Taking part in Visa’s Everywhere Initiative has been a fantastic opportunity for EyeQ to gain exposure, network with other startups and business leaders, and generally refine our products. Visa’s API (Application Programme Interface) System is a diverse ecosystem that helps startups and fintech companies to develop. After this competition, we hope EyeQ will receive more attention to expand our offering, and to really put our proposal into action.

Being endorsed by a leading digital payment provider like Visa will improve EyeQ’s brand awareness and marketing. With a vision to go global, EyeQ sees the competition as a shortcut to bring our offerings to overseas markets. EyeQ hopes to extend its reach to more of Visa’s partners and clients, and one day it will integrate the system into their platforms. To facilitate this goal, the startup is seeking more talent in the areas of artificial intelligence and computer vision.

Over the past few years, Vietnam’s startup scene has picked up momentum thanks to the government’s incentives and various initiatives in place. Vietnam is a high-potential market for startups, with enormous opportunities to innovate and expand. However, there are not many investment funds for Vietnamese startups. Hopefully, more programmes like Visa’s Everywhere Initiative will continue to give rise to new fintech companies and new payment methods in Vietnam.

The founder of EyeQ graduated from the doctoral programme at the University of New South Wales, one of the Top 100 programmes in Computer Science. With a deep knowledge of big data, he wishes to create intelligent and innovative products offering high quality. EyeQ officially made its debut in Startup Wheel 2017, where it also picked up the first prize. Since then, the startup has begun to gain traction with its products for coffee shops, airport security, transport, and smart cities.

With a focus on facial payment systems, EyeQ has developed a track record for face recognition by successfully identifying over two million Asian (including Vietnamese) faces. Hence, its service is trusted and used by its corporate clients such as Vingroup and Unilever Vietnam. EyeQ is looking for opportunities to integrate its face recognition system into mobile wallets, banks, and insurance companies, in addition to collaborating with Visa in the future.

Phan Hong Minh - Founder and CEO, JupViec.vn

Vietnam-based housekeeping service JupViec.vn has won the Financial Inclusion Award at Visa’s Everywhere Initiative this year. Known as the Uber for housekeepers, JupViec.vn aims to change the traditional housekeeping industry in Vietnam by connecting domestic workers with households online. We currently operate in 10 cities and provinces across Vietnam with a plan to scale up the operations to 20 cities and provinces by the end of next year.

JupViec.vn applies modern technologies in the recruitment, training, and management of its workers to consistently manage and improve its service quality. As a result, the startup helps resolve most of the problems of modern households by providing trained domestic workers on an hourly basis.

The startup, launched in 2012, has become a leading housekeeping service with a plan to increase its offerings to 10 services next year. JupViec.vn estimates that it will create nearly 1.2 million working hours for 2,000 workers in Vietnam this year. It is also projected to process 350,000 transactions in 2018, with $3 million in revenue.

Like other fast-growing businesses, the number one pain point JupViec.vn aims to address at the moment is its payment method. The startup reported that 93 per cent of its customers currently use cash or bank transfer payments, and only 7 per cent of customers have adopted internet banking. This causes several problems for the startup, including a complicated process, incorrect information, and a long waiting time. JupViec.vn hopes that it can work with Visa to solve these problems and integrate Visa solutions such as Funds Transfer and mVisa directly in its platform. These products will help the startup optimise its mobile app’s performance, especially given that most of its workers and customers are using the app on smartphones.

It is obvious that the collaboration with Visa will bring a lot of advantages for the users. Their transactions will be safer because they no longer need to carry money. They can also use one card for all home services provided by JupViec.vn.

Meanwhile, the tie-up will help Visa strengthen its cash-less business, not only in Vietnam’s large cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but also expanding to other provinces. On top of that, it gives Visa a chance to have a larger social impact in Vietnam by supporting millions of working women to find part-time jobs and earn additional income.

For JupViec.vn, winning this award is of great significance. Being certified by Visa, the world’s biggest digital payment provider, will help boost the startup’s brand. It also shows that Visa pays attention to small businesses and the startup community in Vietnam.

I think that Visa’s Everywhere Initiative is a good programme, because it gathers many quality startups with creative ideas. We have learned a lot from the instructions offered by Visa’s experts as well as using Visa’s direct APIs to solve our payment problems. In addition, the competition is a good chance to brush up our presentation skills. We performed the pitch three times before the grand finale of Visa’s Everywhere Initiative.

Moving forward, we will integrate Visa products into our platform to improve the transparency of payment and transaction processes. Besides developing digital payment solutions, we plan to introduce certain other services like massage at home, babysitting, and elderly care, among others, to help our customers optimise their time and make their lives more convenient. JupViec.vn will continue its expansion efforts to bring more opportunities for low-income women in Vietnam.

Hai Ho - CEO, Triip.me

We are very proud that Triip.me has outstripped many competitors to win the Audience Choice Award in Visa’s Everywhere Initiative this year. This award shows that our product is recognised and meets the requirements of many users.

Our project has been in use for more than four years and has gained initial revenue. When they found out about us, Visa actively reached out and asked us to participate in this competition. At the same time, I also realised that I was struggling with the problem of how to receive payment from international tourists all over the world. Thanks to this competition, Visa helped connect us to other startups to co-work and map out directions for us to develop our company in the coming years. For startups in general and for Triip.me in particular, it is very important to be able to reach up globally. We are able to do that with the assistance of Visa which has a global network, a long history, and, most importantly, has many related entities which we can be connected with.

Visa has met all of our requirements and answered all of our questions and connected us globally. Visa has even helped gather interested companies from different countries to sit down and work out feasible solutions for their needs. Vietnamese startups have not been given an opportunity like this before. It has special significance for startups like us, as we do not have many relations with other partners. There is a slogan in Vietnam that we are “bringing Vietnamese startups to the world,” but questions remain about where to go and how to go there. And Visa helps us with this task.

Through this competition, I have learned many new things. One of them is that in order to let startups reach out to the global environment, we need the input of different bodies and sides, and startups cannot do it by themselves. Visa is the most interested in solutions which have an impact on the majority of society. It is not enough for a startup to make a product to get revenue; the product must also be of some benefit to society. Vietnamese startups should concentrate on this target, so they can be assisted by Visa and many other companies and organisations globally. This is absolutely the best way to help Vietnamese startups reach out to the global economy.

Of course, opportunities are always accompanied by challenges. One of the biggest challenges was to meet Visa’s requirements with the best answers. We were lucky because we had four opportunities to discuss all requirements with Visa’s team from the US, to find out exactly what we had to do for this competition. Many things were done, many dossiers and proposals were sent between us, and we finally worked out the best way to implement our plan.

Now we have our products, and Visa is assisting us in introducing our products to other partners in the global network. It is so great! We are well aware that this is only the first step and there is a tough road ahead. Let’s go and reach further!