Bank to enhance digital technology platforms for better customer support
Vishal Shah, Head of Business Banking Division at the Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint-stock Bank (Techcombank), shared in an interview about how the bank implemented credit support programs for enterprises in the past years.
Mr. Vishal Shah
Q: Doing Business 2020 report published by WB has evaluated Vietnam's credit access index and the ranking of Vietnam has increased by 7 levels. What do you think about this ranking in Doing Business 2020 report?
This is a remarkable achievement for Vietnam. It also demonstrates that the Vietnamese banking industry has well supported the implementation of Government's resolutions on improving the business environment and creating favorable conditions for individuals and enterprises to access credit in a fair and transparent manner. This result also shows the determination of the country in forming a stable macroeconomic environment to attract both domestic and foreign investors.
Q: Mr. Vishal, in order to contribute to the growth of Vietnam's credit access index, how has Techcombank implemented credit support programs for enterprises in the past years?
Techcombank has a customer-centric strategy that targets six consumption-led economic sectors that account for nearly half of Vietnam’s GDP. We serve as the one-stop solutions provider for our corporate customers’ and their value chains. Within Business Banking, we embarked on an ambitious transformation journey since 2016 to completely redesign our business model, from identifying key economic sectors and related sub-segments, to upgrade our technology and digital platforms, with the aim to be a long-term partner and trusted partner to support the growth of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SME).
As SME grows, their needs become more complex and diverse. Depending on their business life-cycle and the industry they operate, we provide customized industry focused solutions via business programs based on deep customer insights of their unique needs.
Riding on Vietnam’s remarkable economic growth driven by trade liberalization and global integration, to date, we serve more than 35,000 lending and non-lending SME customers and our funded loan outstanding have increased a significant 48% year-on-year Sep’19 vs Sep’18.
Q: In what direction have the procedures supporting enterprises been implemented in order to save costs for customers in general and SMEs customer segment in particular when they access credit from Techcombank?
We recognize that in today’s fast changing business world, businesses that are able to act fast and adapt to the evolving consumer needs will be more successful. With that in mind, we have streamlined our credit approval process, as well as improved our key transaction processes such as issuance of Letters of Credit, Letters of Guarantees and loans disbursement, to make banking simpler and more efficient for our SME customers. Our aim is to enable loan disbursement, issue Letters of Credit and Letters of Guarantee within 3 hours for the time the request submitted by our customers (subject to the required documentation being provided in full). Our aim is to make banking simpler and more efficient for our clients, which in turn would allow them to improve their productivity and business efficiency.
In addition, we recognize that high bank transfer fees for local payments has also been a pain point for our customers, especially SMEs when they often have to make several payments from different banking platforms. Therefore, we led the way and were the first bank to offer Zero Fees to our SME and Corporate customers, when they initiate payments through our Corporate Online Banking platform ie Fast E-bank (FEB). Our commitment is to offer this to all clients leveraging FEB for local payments without any cap, thereby making our Zero Fee offering truly unlimited and without any caps or restrictions.
To September 2019, more than 18,000 customers have benefited from our Zero Fee program, which is a two fold increase over the past 12 months. Our customers have benefited from this offering and saved fees which in turn has optimized their operating costs.
We strive to bring the best solutions to our customers through continuing to add enhanced features on our corporate online banking platform - FEB. Starting Feb’2020, SME and Corporate customers who avail our digital banking solutions will also enjoy preferential FX rates and overseas remittance fees and also enjoy interest on their Current Account balances via a tiered interest rate offering, in addition continuing to enjoy zero fees for local transfers. Our aim is to empower our customers, via minimizing their operating costs and save time thereby enabling us to collectively “Be Greater, Everyday”.
Q: It is well known that Techcombank is an innovative investment bank in technology and gradually moves products from services to digital channels. Thanks to technology, how long has the transaction time for customers and businesses been shortened?
We aim to provide our customers a superior banking experience in terms of speed, convenience and efficiency through digitalization, which is in line with Government's guidelines on reducing the amount of cash transactions nationwide.
Besides the improvement on turnaround time for SME customers mentioned earlier, overall bank-wide, we have achieved remarkable digital transformation over the past 3 to 4 years. For example, our YTD Sep’19 total bank transaction value was nearly VND 2,120 trillion, which is 3 times compared to the same period in 2018. Our customers can now apply for credit cards online with the approval process being completed within 15 minutes, when the required information is provided by the applicant. In addition, we offer higher interest rates to our individual customers for their savings balances when they transact via online and / or mobile.
With customer centric product design thinking originated from deep understanding of customer needs, Techcombank aims to continue to simplify and digitize our key processes with the aim of improving service quality and increase customer benefits. For example, the digitalization process of M + (i.e. retail mortgage loan application) has successfully shortened the application processing to more than 200 minutes, the total time to operate a successful loan can be only in 3-4 days, customers can access and manage their loan profiles. This digital transformation has brought about a significantly improved customer experience and satisfaction.
Q: In order to continue upgrading this index in the 2021 report of Doing Business, what do Techcombank in particular, other credit institutions and the SBV need to do so that the credit assess index of Vietnam would improve?
In the coming years, Techcombank will continue to invest heavily in outstanding human resources and upgrade our digital technology platforms with the aim to improve customer experience and efficiency.
Vietnam has more than 500,000 enterprises, of which more than 98.1% are small and medium enterprises. The number of new SMEs every year is over 120,000. It is the evident that SMEs today play an increasingly pivotal role in Vietnamese economy, especially providing job opportunity and increase contribution to overall GDP growth.
We aim to be a key financial partner for our SME and Corporate customers and hence Be Greater > Together.
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