VBSP CEO Duong Quyet Thang had a meeting with Microsave senior delegation

(VBSP News) In the morning of November 15 2018, CEO Duong Quyet Thang and other Deputy CEOs welcomed and met with Mr. Manoj Kumar Sharma – Director of Asia MicroSave and his delegation at VBSP Headqarters, Hanoi.

VBSP CEO Duong Quyet Thang had a meeting with Microsave senior delegation

Mr. Manoj Kumar Sharma thanked VBSP CEO for the warm welcome and appreciation of the VBSP achievements over recent years.

MicroSave is an international financial inclusion consulting firm dedicated to strengthening the capacity of institutions to deliver market-led, scalable financial services to all people. Over the past 20 years, MicroSave has designed and implemented nearly 75 digital finance projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America with over 200 banks, MFIs and MNOs to develop and test over 200 different financial inclusion products and channels.

Exchanging with the delegation, CEO Duong Quyet Thang highlighted the operation results of VBSP over 16 years and the role of VBSP in poverty alleviation and social security.

VBSP is established as a government bank to provide financial products and services for the poor and other disadvantaged groups in Vietnam. To date, Vietnam Bank for Social Policies has the largest operation coverage  in the Vietnam Banking system with a view to ensuring that customers in rural, mountainous and remote areas can easily access to financial services. To date, VBSP has 63 provincial branches, 631 district transaction offices, nearly 11,000 transaction points at communes, wards and towns and around 200,000 savings and credit groups at villages and hamlets in the whole country.

On this occasion, General Director Duong Quyet Thang also asked MicroSave to cooperate with VBSP in accessing digital financial services for the poor to contribute to the implementation of the Strategy for the development of VBSP until 2020, ensuring 100% of poor households and policy beneficiaries have access to the best products and services.

The Microsave’s support for VBSP is within the ‘Innovate, Implement, Impact (i3) Program’ works in Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, and Vietnam to leverage digital technology and offer significant insights into the needs, aspirations, and behaviors of low- and moderate-income (LMI) people to build and deliver financial services for the mass market. LMI people lack access to formal financial services and hence have to struggle to manage their limited resources and cash flows. The i3 program expects to make a direct difference to at least 400,000 underserved LMI clients across the focus markets. In addition, more people will derive indirect benefits, based on the ripple effects of the interventions.

The 36-month program focusses on working with implementation partners (banks, mobile financial services providers, microfinance institutions and fintechs) in these markets for better design and delivery of products and services as per the needs of LMI clients—either by way of access to formal financial services for new customers or through deepening usage and extending a broader range of services to existing customers.