Mobile banking for the poor in Vietnam

Phase One (2016 – 2018)

Partner contribution: $684,311 (actual)
DFAT contribution: $496,638 (actual)

Officially launched by the partners in February 2017, Phase one of this initiative comprised of two stages. Stage one established the foundations for mobile banking including investing in software and hardware to enable SMS notifications to VBSP customers and educating both VBSP staff and customers in the new technology service. Training programs and orientation materials were developed for bank staff and customers on the introduction of SMS notifications.

Stage two comprised of the building and roll out of the mobile banking platform. Unexpected challenges led to substantial changes and delays largely around upgrades to the VBSP IT system, technology transference and changes to Vietnamese cybersecurity laws resulting in the planned use of Mastercard’s existing Financial Inclusion cloud platform – hosted outside Vietnam – to no longer be viable. The VBSP is now building its own platform that will be owned and managed by the bank, enabling it to provide mobile banking and eventually other digital financial services to meet the increasing and diverse needs of its clients in the long term. This will require significant technical input from Mastercard with the new platform tentatively planned to go live by the end of 2020.

Phase two (2019-2021)

Partner contribution: $780,000 (target)
DFAT contribution: $780,000 (target)

This partnership brings together the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP), The Asia Foundation, and Mastercard in an initiative to improve access to digital financial services in Vietnam for low income customers.

The first phase of this initiative (September 2016- August 2018) established SMS banking and reached 5.1 million customers. The initiative has been extended to further expand VBSP’s digital financial services to include mobile phone banking services. The second phase of this initiative is supported by DFAT through the Australian Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The second phase of this initiative (2019-2022) will establish VBSP’s mobile banking platform and prioritise women who face difficulties accessing mobile phone technology (as identified in a gender assessment). VBSP and Mastercard will develop the platform together and provide financial literacy training to 51,000 people. It is expected that 2,350 people will adopt the mobile banking platform by the end of year three.

Results

The first phase of the partnership exceeded planned targets, reaching 5.1 million clients (51 per cent of whom were women) across 63 VBSP branches with SMS account-related notifications such as repayment schedules and monthly account balances. Training programs and orientation materials were developed for VBSP staff and customers on the introduction of SMS notifications.

Given the number of customers with low levels of education and literacy, the bank included face-to-face orientation and hands-on guidance by trained VBSP staff. In a review of the initiative’s first phase, 90 per cent of customers said they highly valued the service and were interested in continuing to receive account related information via SMS.

For more information on phase two:
Press release from the Vietnam Bank of Social Policies

*Phase 2 was extended from its original closing date of February 2021.