Tyme Bank Holdings Ltd., a digital bank minority owned by the Gokongwei group, is focusing expansion across Southeast Asia as it plans putting up banking operations in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Nathaniel Clarke, GoTyme Bank founding member and chief executive officer, said the bank looks to welcome its Vietnamese partner within the first quarter next year and start its Vietnam operations by 2025.
According to Clarke, Vietnam shares very similar demographics with the Philippines given its large underserved population of over on 100 million.
“We feel like there’s a gap in the market when it comes to customer experience in service. So I think it’s kind of a logical next step,” Clarke said.
He acknowledged the South African origins of the digital lender’s story but said southeast Asia has increasing felt like home.
“So, we’re not focused on expansion in Africa, we’re focused in Southeast Asia, with Vietnam being number one,” he said.
Clarke said Tyme already has 300 people in Vietnam working on product development and engineering. It is headquartered in Singapore where strategy, business development, data, analytics and artificial intelligence functions are crafted.
“That’s actually, interestingly, our largest office (is in Vietnam) because a lot of our products and engineers and designers are there. They serve both South Africa and the Philippines. So even though we don’t have a consumer brand, we’re already actually quite well known in the market, and we have a lot of team members who understand the market. So that would obviously make it easier to start a new business there,” he said.
Clarke said they hope to sign a deal with a local bank in Vietnam by next year, but the technology, product build, distribution and regulatory compliance may take another year to get to launch.
In the Philippines, Gotyme Bank Corp.is set to launch its lending product in the next few months.
Albert Raymund O. Tinio, co-CEO at GoTyme Bank, said the lending is targeted at small-scale and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Tinio said the lender will also offer salary loans, first for the employees of JG Summit Holdings Inc. before offering it to the general public.
The company will also offer a “buy-now, pay later” scheme similar to the Atome mobile app offered by Neuroncredit Financing Co. Inc.
This offering still needs approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Clarke said.
