Neobanks and the next step: Timo

05/08/2021Interview
Henry Nguyen, CEO of Timo in Vietnam, discloses how his bank aspires to be the “best 2nd account” in the country, creating a complementary relationship with traditional banks.


The demographics of neobank users are often surprising; it is not only young people who are signing up, but also older age brackets. What is the standard profile of your target customer? What has been key to your customer acquisition success?

Young or old is a false dichotomy for us - for us there are only people who are happily banked and people who are not happily banked, either because they don’t even have a bank account or because they have a bank account but their bank really isn’t serving them well.

Those two groups, the “unhappily banked” and the “unbanked” are two very distinct segments where we have seen considerable success in serving them both, primarily because we try and keep things simple - make it easy to sign up, easy to use, no hidden surprises or fees etc. - it’s about building trust and offering “better banking” to help our customers enjoy living their best possible lives. 

Seamless partnerships are key to serve these evolving needs, it all comes down to understanding the customer deeply and figuring out how to be relevant and serve them better.

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