#11 Fintech Vietnam with Brano Vargic (Home Credit Vietnam)

Banking on Air

In this episode, Brano Vargic talks with Marcel about the fintech scene in Southeast Asia, hypergrowth of the local market and gives tips on how to get started in the region as a company coming in from Europe or the Americas. Brano is currently the COO of Home Credit Vietnam, a quick loan, financing and credit card company originally from the CEE, which expanded into Southeast Asia.

Here is a rundown of the episode, if you want to jump ahead:

• 01:00 Moving from HR into banking and fintech
• 02:37 What surprised in you in Vietnam?
• 04:17 Business model for Home Credit in the region
• 07:16 How the massive size of the local market is different from European scale
• 11:42 Innovation is not coming from Europe!
• 13:25 Popular fintechs in the region
• 15:53 Importance of gamification and play
• 19:06 Moving to online support center and chat to keep up with demand
• 24:10 Tips for fintechs coming to Vietnam
• 25:43 Story about local sandwich stand using mobile payments

Useful links from episode:

• Brano on Linkedin
• Home Credit Vietnam website
• Home Credit Vietnam on LinkedIn

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Brano Vargic is currently COO of Home Credit Vietnam - is a senior business leader with cross-functional and cross-cultural experiences in finance, fin-tech, banking and strategy consulting, with history of executive roles in HR, Operations, M&A, Digital projects and Business Development in Central Europe and in Asia. He is a Fin-tech and digital transformation enthusiast who “continuously opens digital bank accounts just to learn and evaluate CX as a hobby”. Brano is true believer in job rotations - as he says - "diversity of my roles in organisations taught me to understand deep interdisciplinary dependencies of different company areas and helped me to shape who i believe I am today as a leader - kind but sharp, emphatic but straightforward, agile but strategic.” Brano has also spent 15 years in academia; he is refereed journal published writer and researcher and has long history of lecturing in various MBA programs in Europe and United States. He is 45, married and has 3 kids :)

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War stories episodes in Banking in Air podcast explores the lives and journeys of founders and technology leaders as they work to overcome challenges while building products in an ever-changing world. Hosted by Marcel Klimo of Vacuumlabs.