Home Credit Vietnam has hardened its resolve in recent years in order to keep pace with the fast-changing need on the financial market. The consumer finance company launched a new logo in the Vietnamese market as a crucial part of its transformation. In an interview, Dmitry Mosolov, CEO of Home Credit Vietnam, shares the details.
Redesigning the company logo often signifies the introduction of some innovation and there usually is a purpose behind the decision. What prompted the change at Home Credit?
The entire Home Credit group has been gone through a brand transformation, starting at the end of 2016 in the Czech Republic, and spreading to other markets.
Our previous rectangular logo included the company’s name and a white refrigerator, symbolising the availability and ease of purchase of home appliances with credit from the company.
As consumers are nowadays shoppers with a positive, can-do outlook in life, they believe anything is obtainable and they want to live a full life. Therefore, they are not only shopping for their needs, but also for a shopping experience ifself.
Therefore, we’ve created the smiley logo to express our core values that include people-centric approach, fairness, transparency and responsible lending. We hope that this will be exactly what customer will experience with Home Credit. We’re now focusing on people and their will of possession to learn more about them and satisfy their demands.
We believe that the new logo with a smiley will help improve brand visibility, recognition and likability. It is our strong affirmation with customer that we understand them, and we can be their reliable partner in both good and tough times to help them afford things that matter in life.
It means that customer experience is now very important to the business. How do you learn about their experience and improve it?
We established a Customer Experience department in our organisation. Its main role is collecting customers’ feedback, from which we can react immediately to customers’ complaints. All improvements are to provide better customer experience for Home Credit’s clients in Vietnam.
The most important thing is that we have enhanced the transparency of our services as we believe it’s the principal expectation from customers. Home Credit has kept improving systems and services, enabling customers to keep track with their status in order to control their loans. We have conducted many financial literacy programs to improve Vietnamese customers’ knowledge about installment loans.
As a technology-driven finance company, we apply modern technologies to every stage of the credit granting procedure, which helps bring convenience to our customers. We’ve made our approval process fully automatic and fast, thus greatly reducing the data which repeat customers need to fill in. By launching the new hotline number *6868, we want to give customers comfort in contacting us at any time.
Although Home Credit Vietnam receives thousands of loan applications every day, the company’s internal scoring system allows us to make decision in just a few minutes and customers are satisfied with that. Currently, 95% of Home Credit Vietnam’s customers have received the results in 9-10 minutes.
Since November 2016, for cash loan application, we have removed all document requirements except the ID card and the driving licence. We are now applying Big Data technology extensively in the underwriting process, which allows faster approval processes.
Our product portfolio has been significantly diversified. Home Credit has already provided education and health service installment loans. Credit cards will be the next in line and many other interesting products will come soon.
Vietnam had 28.77 million smartphone users in 2017. This figure is projected to grow to 42.66 million in 2022, according to Statista, a Germany-based statistics company. What is Home Credit doing to provide smartphone users with a good experience?
As I said, Home Credit is a technology-driven company. Therefore, we are trying to provide innovative solutions in order to retain our customers. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that the Home Credit mobile app is the number one Consumer Finance Application in Vietnam at present, according to the rating point and number of installers. Currently, more than 1.5 million people have installed this solution for managing loans provided by us or to apply for a cash loan.
By using this app, users can easily manage their installments, and check the history and status of their contract. Besides, customers don’t have to spend much time searching for our partners because the mobile app can help them locate the nearest disbursement and payment locations. It also helps them receive payment reminders on time.
Users who are not yet customers of Home Credit can locate our nearest cash loan Point of Sales — POS — locations by using the app. This is the prominent feature which makes it a user friendly app. In the near future, we would add more interesting features to offer customers a better experience — such as providing loans to existing customers without their coming to our POS and allowing potential customers to examine our products, understand these completely before coming to our POS.
Aside from providing loans for buying home appliances, your company has tapped into new fields like education and fitness services. Could you share your assessment of the potential of those segments?
Home Credit has been studying and developing new types of loan to meet customers’ different needs. Financing education cost is one successful example.
In Vietnam, millions of people are trying to learn English, not simply for self-improvement but as an economic necessity. Since late June 2017, together with Wall Street English — one of the largest providers of English language education programs around the world — we have introduced our interest-free loan to customers who want to finance their course at the English teaching center.
In the first four months, new products had brought us such remarkable results. Total disbursement by contracts reached VND42 billion, with the average value per contract being approximately VND40 million.
In the coming years, new cooperation ranging through various goods/service types like building materials, furniture, health care services and tourism will be established. We believe that a diversified portfolio based on competitive pricing will support our sustainable development.
Home Credit is launching its credit card in December. Is it different from credit cards provided by banks?
Our credit card product is about to follow the trend of demand of our target segment as a modern payment tool.
As the acquiring process is simple and fast, consumers can easily find and apply for a credit card at any Home Credit POS nationwide. We’re removing barriers to allow customers to approach our credit cards easier. Consumers, no matter how their financial status is, can enjoy advanced features of cash-less lifestyle when coming to Home Credit.
We also connect our 0% interest installment loan to this new product. New customers who are yet to use our services can also make the first transaction by a credit card to get this beneficial loan package. It enables first-time credit card holders to enjoy the services of Home Credit. In addition, all the systems of Home Credit are synchronised. Therefore, customer can actively control credit card by free SMS notification or access on Home Credit website/Mobile app.
Being supported by strong partnerships, we’ll provide our customers the most appropriate and valuable discounts via card transactions at over 50 partners across Vietnam. Our cash back and loyalty program is also a plus for our product, and also helps us to show our appreciation to our best customers.
Could you share a little about your company’s business result in Vietnam’s market?
The total outstanding loans in the first nine months of 2017 are over VND13,948 billion, an increase of more than 33.3% compared to late last year. In the first three quarter this year, our sale volume has seen significant growth in all three segments of consumer durables, two-wheeler and cash loan, while NPL ratio at the same time was only 2.5%. The average number of new contracts per month is approximately 290,000, up 28% from the same period in 2016. Up to 70-80% of customers had signed the 0% IR loan contracts. Total quantity of customers on the company’s database was around 7 million by the end of this November.