Overcoming certain obstacles in terms of geography and investment costs, a number of joint stock banks have accelerated to narrow the "market gap" in rural areas and second-tier cities, leveraging the strength of digitalization to break through the growth in the number of customers.
These pioneering steps also contribute to promoting the comprehensive financial strategy set forth by the Government and the State Bank - Photo: VGP/Le Nguyen
According to statistics from Merchant Machine about two years ago, Vietnam ranked second in the world in terms of the proportion of people who have not accessed banking services. However, on the day of digital transformation in 2023, a representative of the State Bank confirmed that about 74.63% of Vietnamese adults have bank accounts, of which more than 70% of newly opened accounts are opened in rural, remote and isolated areas. Type 2 urban areas - Importance for economic and social development Type 2 urban areas are a type of urban hierarchy, regulated in Vietnam's urban classification system. These are small and medium-sized urban areas, but play an important role in the socio-economic development of a country. These urban areas are often the economic, cultural and administrative centers of provinces and cities, where a large population with diverse economic activities is concentrated. The development of secondary cities not only helps balance development between regions but also creates job opportunities and improves the quality of life for people. Improving access to banking services, especially in rural areas and secondary cities, has long been one of the core priorities of Vietnam's financial development policy. In the past, traditional commercial banks often did not expand their networks sufficiently in these areas, largely due to high investment costs, thin local human resources and geographical challenges that limited access. However, in recent years, realizing the potential of this "fertile land", as well as the increasingly strong accumulated resources of banks, many banks have actively expanded their customer base to secondary urban areas. Accordingly, this expansion direction plays a key role in meeting people's financial needs, designing and developing products and services suitable for customers in these areas. On the contrary, the strong development of these market areas has created more attractiveness for commercial banks. The breakthrough step of Coming together to become stronger, ten years ago, in the context of the banking industry facing a restructuring trend, HDBank and DaiABank, two banks voluntarily came together and became typical success stories of M&A activities in the industry. At that time, HDBank - a bank with a stable customer base in urban areas and DaiABank - a bank with a large rural customer base in the Southeast region, joined hands to expand the scale of the network and customer base. The Southeast region - where favorable conditions for the development of industrial and service sectors converge, is also one of the first "cradles" that helped HDBank develop its agricultural and rural customer base. This area has favorable land resources for Vietnam's key crops such as rubber, coffee, etc. Along with cultivation, livestock, poultry, and seafood industries such as shrimp and fish, especially developed in coastal provinces, have created great opportunities for HDBank to develop its target customer base as well as develop products and services.Regularly organizing direct marketing in the region, developing a good source of collaborators, promoting customer care, designing specific products and services to suit customer files... are the ways this bank gets closer to the agricultural and rural customer group.
After establishing a separate website system for each of the 63 provinces and cities to connect and meet the specific needs of each region, in 2023, the Bank launched the HDBank Rural app, an application dedicated to customers in agricultural and rural areas. By the end of the year, the number of new customers on digital channels increased by 58% over the same period and surpassed the number of new customers attracted through traditional channels. And up to now, along with the "Big 4" Agribank, Vietcombank, BIDV and VietinBank, HDBank is one of the few commercial banks that has covered the network in all 63 provinces and cities across the country. Building a solid foundation, HDBank has continuously expanded its network, especially targeting customers in rural areas and type 2 urban areas with loan packages with preferential interest rates and specially designed financial solutions. Currently, the agricultural and rural lending market is an important part of HDBank's credit structure, accounting for 33% of total outstanding personal loans. In the credit segment, the number of agricultural and rural customers accounts for 42.9%, the largest number of all products. In addition to expanding and maintaining credit scale, developing this customer base helps HDBank minimize risks when the economy is in difficulty. The reason why the bad debt ratio of agricultural and rural lending products is low is because the loans are small in scale, so the risk is dispersed, and the possibility of overdue debt is low. "The agricultural and rural segment has its roots firmly rooted for more than a decade, spreading its strength to increase the contribution rate to HDBank. Not to mention, agriculture and rural areas have always been the pillars of the economy, associated with specific strengths," said a representative of HDBank. Along with HDBank, Agribank is still the traditional "locomotive" in implementing the national comprehensive financial strategy, with strengths in the above-mentioned regions and markets. Evidence is that outstanding loans for investment in agricultural and rural development always account for 70% of Agribank's outstanding loans in the economy, accounting for a large proportion of the total outstanding loans of nearly 2 million billion VND in the agricultural and rural sector in Vietnam. Agribank's "locomotive" role is considered by the international community as an effective poverty reduction model thanks to the implementation of 7 policy credit programs and 2 national target programs on new rural construction and sustainable poverty reduction. This has contributed to Vietnam achieving the millennium goal on poverty reduction 10 years ahead of schedule. Not only Agribank and HDBank, LPBank is also one of the banks leading the trend of rural market development. LPBank's leaders once shared: "With a presence in all districts and towns, LPBank will be at the forefront of the development trend of the rural market, a key market that we have had the advantage of establishing for many years". LPBank is constantly developing its network of traditional transaction points across 63 provinces and cities. LPBank's strategy is also to combine both online and offline to create resonance, help develop sustainably and increase the number of customers, and cross-sell products and services. LPBank's representative said: "The characteristics of rural Vietnam are regional factors. Therefore, it is necessary to design products that are suitable for the customer base in each locality and each industry, not just according to customer segments. In addition, it is also necessary to focus on applying technology so that users find it simple, convenient, easy to use, and have a highly personalized experience, meeting regional characteristics". Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/buoc-di-dot-pha-giup-ngan-hang-tang-truong-so-luong-khach-hang-102240827165104723.htm
Comment (0)