Fintech companies in Vietnam acquired $410 million, or 36% of the total global capital invested into Southeast Asia’s economies between January and September of this year, which is right behind Singapore.
Vietnam’s market share of regional VC funding allocated to Fintech-related projects increased from only 0.4% last year, according to a report from the United Overseas Bank (UOB), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA).
Singapore maintained its position as the leader for regional Fintech investment. The country attracted around 51% of Southeast Asia’s Fintech-focused investments, which is down slightly from around 53% in 2018. Indonesia came in at third place with 12% of capital allocated to the region for Fintech projects, down about 37% from the previous year.
Toward the end of Q3 2019, the ASEAN region, which includes Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, reportedly received $1.14 billion in total funding for Fintech-related initiatives, up significantly from only $35 million during 2014, the report revealed.
The increase in overall investments in Vietnam during 2019 may be due to two major deals involving online payments. In July of this year, digital payments company VNpay acquired $300 million in capital from Japan’s global conglomerate SoftBank and GIC, Singapore’s national wealth fund.
In January, online payments app MOMO Pay secured $100 million from various investors including US-based private equity company Warburg Pincus for its Series C round. These two major deals represent 98% of the total funding received by Vietnam for Fintech projects during the first 9 months of 2019.
Vietnam ranked third in the ASEAN region at about 8% in terms of the total number of investment deals this year, up considerably from just 2% last year, but still trailing Singapore and Indonesia with 51% and 28%, respectively.
You can check out the full report here.