Gobear to Bring Financial Institutions Closer to Their Consumers

As a country with a young population, 54 per cent of which connected to the internet, and as many as 128 million of registered mobile subscribers, Vietnam is witnessing dramatic changes in shopping trends in the local retail market. Vietnam Business Forum had a conversation with Mr Andre Hesselink, Founder and CEO of GoBear, on these trends and the solutions that GoBear will offer consumers in Vietnam, as GoBear has officially picked Vietnam as its 6th destination in the region to do business in. Nam Pham reports.

Why did GoBear choose Vietnam as its 6th market after Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore?
Before GoBear was incorporated in Singapore in 2015, we had been doing a lot of research on Asian markets in general as well as Vietnam. These surveys gave us a great deal of information and were the premise for us to finally determine our presence in each market.

It’s evident that Vietnam remains underbanked, as only 30 per cent of the adult population has a bank account. This figure is much lower than in nearby countries like Singapore or Malaysia, but it also means the Vietnamese financial sector has great potential to grow. At the same time, internet usage in Vietnam is growing very fast with one-half of the population now online. Customers between 25 and 45 years old are particularly tech-savvy.

I can see that Vietnamese consumers are increasingly irritated by traditional marketing channels, thus financial institutions have to find alternative options to talk directly with their potential customers. These facts present a golden opportunity for Fintech companies like GoBear that have put the customers needs at the centre of their offerings. And indeed we’ve seen a rise in Fintech startups over the past two years in Vietnam.

Moreover, study findings indicate that the banking and insurance industries are still operating in a traditional fashion not just in Vietnam, but across the region. More importantly, local consumers lack an unbiased, easy and transparent comparison tool for financial products. All of these gave us the confidence that GoBear has a good chance with Vietnam.

Can you share with us GoBear’s optimal solutions that you believe will stay on the forefront of the developmental trends that you just mentioned?
GoBear is Asia’s first and only metasearch engine in insurance and banking products. It was formed on the need for an online tool to help users search for complex financial products such as insurance, credit cards and loans in a transparent, easy and unbiased way. The unique and powerful proposition of GoBear is that we provide an easy to understand overview of the market With our personalized search and filtering functions, consumers can have a side-by-side comparison in seconds and based on their preferences and needs.

GoBear’s slogan is Comparison Made Easy, and accordingly, we tried to build a search and comparison webpage for financial products that everyone can understand. The Vietnamese GoBear website now displays information about different credit cards and personal loans available in the market for users to easily compare and choose the ones that best fit their financial preference and needs – all free of charge.

Many believe that fintech is an effective solution to help increase service coverage and give consumers easier access to financial service providers. What is your take on that?
That I totally agree with. Technology is changing day by day across all aspects of the economy and it also changes the way people do their shopping. Making it simple and convenient for consumers is always the ultimate goal of technology. The advantage that fintech companies have is their ability to apply technology to renovate, innovate and modernize sales channels, improve convenience and access to services, and create products that are more tailored to consumers’ needs.

This has been the very path forward of the finance industry in advanced countries and I believe that this will become a common solution that is quickly taken up in the financial markets of Asia, and Vietnam also in the not too distant future.

What exactly will GoBear Vietnam do to take consumers closer to financial service providers?
GoBear arrived in Vietnam early last month but Vietnamese consumers can now visit the GoBear website to compare nearly 200 credit cards and 30 name lending facilities, from 50 existing banks and finance companies in the market. And many more products will be added in 2017.

We should stress that GoBear does not accept advertising from suppliers that will influence the core search results, which means our search results are all unbiased customized to users’ needs and free from promotions. Likewise, we’ll not charge users as our promise is that all information is available for free. Users don’t buy anything from GoBear but they can buy from the supplier of choice. We just show them all the great deals, they compare, and then they choose what’s right for them. Once they’ve made that choice, we hook you up with the insurance provider or the bank to finalize the deal. Those providers pay us a small referral fee – and that’s how we bring home the bacon.

GoBear was first launched in Singapore in 2015, since then it has extended its pawprint to other major Asian countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. Not even two years into its operation, more than 4.5 million users have put their trust in GoBear when it comes to comparing insurance and banking products such as credit cards and personal loans.