Saigon Asset Management (SAM) has entered into an investment and strategic combination agreement with digital brokerage fintech Anfin.
The size of the investment was not disclosed in Tuesday’s announcement. But previous investments in the brokerage, founded in June 2021, included $510,000 in October from Global Founders Capital, First Check Ventures and R2 Venture Partners, followed by another $125,000 from Y-Combinator in November. In January, Anfin raised $1.2 million in a seed round from investors including Global Founders Capital, First Check Ventures and Goodwater Capital, according to an e27 report. The CEOs of Gojek, Zalora, Stripe, Google and Grab also participated via XA Network, according to the e27 report, noting that Anfin also received angel investments from unnamed directors of Temasek and Coinbase.
As part of the deal, SAM’s investment fund portfolio will be offered on Anfin’s stock trading app, and the two will work with other institutional investors on future investment rounds, the companies said in a press release.
Search for foreign funds
Phuoc Tranco-founder and CEO of Anfin, said in the statement that the deal would provide his company with more opportunities to establish links with foreign investment funds.
“It is part of our ambition to promote financial literacy among new and young Vietnamese investors,” he said.
SAM’s investment follows an increase in commercial interest from Vietnamese retail investors, with data from the Vietnam Securities Depository showing more than 4.4 million domestic accounts opened at the end of January, up from more than 1.6 million. end of January 2021, the statement said. The Vietnamese government aims to increase equity brokerage penetration to 5% of the population by 2025 from 3% in 2021, the statement said.
Potential growth
Vietnam has a population of over 102 million, according to the CIA World Factbook, with its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2020 rising to $8,200 from $7,600 in 2017.
The country can offer huge market growth potential for fintechs.
Around 49 million Vietnamese adults are unbanked – or don’t have a bank account at all – and around 7 million are underbanked, with a bank account, but no access to credit, investments and insurance. , according to the e-Conomy SEA 2019 report published by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co. in October 2019, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 15 million Vietnamese adults are considered fully banked, according to the report.
Split trade
According to the e-Conomy 2020 report, released in November 2020, after the onset of the pandemic, Vietnam’s monthly active user growth for selected mobile banking applications jumped 73% for the period from January to September.
All-digital brokerage Anfin targets the Vietnamese market through an app offering securities and wealth management products that allow fractional share trading, lowering minimum investment levels. The app has also added exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from Dragon Capital, SSI and Vinacapital to its products, according to the release.
The starting investment on the platform is 10,000 VND, which is less than $1.
Louis Nguyenalso known as “Shark Louis”, chairman and CEO of SAM, said he saw an opportunity in providing “low-cost, high-volume” access to the stock market.
