Vietnam’s recently launched digital bank Cake has announced the formation of a strategic partnership with the SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu as it looks to scale its business towards offering a full suite of digital banking services.
Established in January of 2021, Cake is the result of a promising partnership between Be Group – the organisation behind Vietnam’s ‘Be’ ride-hailing app – and VP Bank, one of Vietnam’s most prominent banks.
This announcement follows a similar move by the cloud banking platform, which recently also partnered with the Vietnamese bank Timo to assist them in scaling their business operations.
This is almost mirrored by the formation of an equally beneficial partnership between Mambu, the Indonesian digital bank PT Bank Jago Tbk, and Google Cloud.
The collaboration is set to make the Vietnamese digital banking experience increasingly seamless, with processes like paying for goods and services, saving money, and receiving deposits made much more efficient. Speaking on the benefits of the partnership, and what it would mean for the bank’s already established customer base, Myles Bertrand, Managing Director APAC at Mambu, comments, “Vietnam’s digital banking market is incredibly active right now, but Cake’s offering – linked to the Be ride-hailing app – is completely unique in the market. Mambu’s cloud banking platform will ensure the safety and security of Cake’s digital banking services, while also enabling the bank to meet their customers’ evolving expectations for outstanding service.”
All products and services offered by Cake are fully licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam through VP Bank, with beFinancial (a part of Be Group) overseeing the operations of the new digital bank.
Discussing how the partnership came into being, Nguyen Huu Quang, CEO of beFinancial, comments, “In order to provide a superior customer experience we need to enable the rapid launch of flexible and unique products, as well as shorten processing times for transactions. We selected Mambu’s cloud banking platform as it is the most innovative and versatile solution on the market.” Nguyen continues, “We wanted to find a technology partner that shares the same understanding of the power and social impact of enabling faster and easier access to financial services. Like Cake, Mambu is nimble and agile, and we are excited about the potential of what our two tech-focused businesses can do together.”
Adding to this, Pham Quang Minh, General Manager Vietnam at Mambu, said, “We are very proud to have been selected by Cake as it looks to expand its business into full service digital banking, and improve access to financial services for young Vietnamese consumers. At Mambu, we are committed to enabling financial inclusion in Vietnam by offering faster time to market and flexible scalability, and Cake’s new digital banking solution will have a tangible impact on this issue.”
Cake is the first digital banking solution attached to a ride-hailing app in Vietnam, and will enable access to financial services for as many as 10 million existing Be customers and drivers, primarily Gen Z and young professional consumers. When considering the many different factors at play, the timely establishment of Cake earlier this year will be set to serve the changing needs of both the banked and the unbanked, who are increasingly turning to digital services to meet their financial needs; as reported by Mambu.
