Cooperation and development with the banking-enterprise ecosystem

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Not only banks and businesses, but also customers of both sides enjoy many benefits in the partnership between banks and businesses.

Blooming cooperation

A series of cooperation deals between banks and businesses have been signed recently with the aim of increasing convenience for customers in the ecosystem of both banks and businesses.

In April 2021, VietinBank signed a cooperation agreement with two major partners, Sovico Group and Novaland Group. The strategic cooperation agreement of Novaland and VietinBank is to meet the capital needs of customers wishing to borrow for buying houses in projects invested and developed by Novaland, Novaland's member companies and contractors. VietinBank will provide preeminent financial support packages for Novaland's customers; cooperate in building preferential credit packages for employees and customers of the two sides.

Similarly, the comprehensive cooperation agreement between VietinBank and Sovico Group – a large economic group, operating in many fields such as finance and banking, aviation, energy and real estate – also aims to exploit the best potential of each party.

Previously, in 2020, VietinBank cooperated with many other partners such as Manulife and Grab to expand its ecosystem, to meet the needs of customers in all areas of life.

Also in April, Sacombank signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Bamboo Airways and its ecosystem. Under this agreement, Sacombank will provide corporate financial services related to credit, bank guarantees, domestic and international payment services, cash flow management, and foreign exchange services, meeting the production and business needs of Bamboo Airways as well as related ecosystems. Bamboo Airways will design and implement its own policies in line with the needs of Sacombank's customers, establishing a foundation for Sacombank to develop and diversify products and services with attractive incentives for customers.

SeABank is also one of the banks that is very active in finding cooperation partners. Currently, this bank has a wide partner system including large corporations with an ecosystem of more than 30 million potential customers such as BRG Group, VNPT, Vietnam Post, Prudential Vietnam, Vietnam Airlines, and HanoiTourist. Thereby helping the bank expand market share, enhance cross-selling of products and services, and develop new customers.

Developing together

Experts said that in such cooperation deals, not only banks and businesses benefit, but customers of both sides also receive a lot of benefits. As in card service, customers can purchase goods with 0% interest installment or refund and many other incentives with the bank's affiliate partners, while businesses will increase sales and banks will have more revenue from services. Currently, each bank has several dozen or even hundreds of affiliates serving customers' installment shopping needs. For strategic partners and comprehensive cooperation partners, the level of benefits of the parties will be even higher.

At the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held earlier this year, Mr. Phan Dinh Tung, General Director of OCB, spoke about the benefits with strategic partners. Accordingly, currently OCB has cooperated with 19 partners and to develop into a retail bank, OCB needs many partners to jointly develop the customer ecosystem. Typically, with its partner FLC Group, Mr. Tung said OCB will join the ecosystem from FLC house buyers, Bamboo Airways ticket buyers, resort and entertainment services of FLC.

OCB and FLC signed a strategic cooperation agreement from the beginning of 2019. Accordingly, in addition to providing financial solutions for FLC Group and its member units, OCB also provides credit service packages for real estate buyers at projects invested by FLC with competitive interest rates and quick procedures.

FLC's special loan product for residents, supporting residents in automating the payment of monthly utility fees. Earlier this year, OCB and Bamboo Airways – a member of FLC Group also cooperated to deploy the OCB-BAV co-branded card.

Accordingly, in addition to the usual features, OCB-BAV cardholders can also enjoy many preferential benefits of Bamboo Airways, receive up to 10% cashback when buying airline tickets, accumulate points for gift redemption as well as other incentives of the FLC ecosystem.

SeaBank also evaluates partners as an extension of the bank. Through the ecosystem between the bank and its partners, customers can enjoy benefits such as preferential credit, credit cards, payment services with preferential fees and interest rates.

Accordingly, in 2020, SeABank has achieved many impressive results through cooperation with strategic partners such as Vietnam Post with the service of collecting personal customer financial records, increasing by 383% compared to 2019.

BRG Group with the number of credit cards increased by 252%, Central Retail with 9,500 Ebank accounts and nearly 1,000 credit cards. With VNPT Group, the interbank money transfer service via VNPT Pay wallet achieved an average growth of 40% per month and a total of 375,000 transactions in the whole year. As for Prudential Vietnam, which has been deployed since March 2020, by the end of the year, the bank's insurance premium revenue has reached VND126 billion with more than 13,000 customers.

It can be seen that the cooperation between banks and businesses is a "win-win" strategy and is being targeted by banks. In particular, the strong digital transformation and superior products and services that are suitable for customers' needs are the keys to helping banks attract more major partners to join their ecosystem to jointly exploit the potentials and advantages of the parties.