VIB – Outstanding Retail Bank, Leading the Personalization Trend

VIB has been named “Outstanding Retail Bank 2026” at the Vietnam Banking Awards. Nearly a decade of transformation has turned a strategic choice into outstanding growth, strengthening VIB’s position in transaction banking, including a Top 3 ranking in card spending and large-scale personalization capabilities. These strengths provide a solid foundation for the bank to pursue its ambition of becoming a leading transaction bank.

The “Outstanding Retail Banking Award 2026” comes as VIB marks 30 years of development. The recognition reflects the bank’s journey of innovating products, services and retail experiences, bringing financial solutions closer to customers’ real-life needs.

Since choosing to focus on retail banking in 2017, VIB has transformed the way it designs products, organizes its business and invests in technology. Over nearly a decade, these changes have translated into tangible competitive advantages: retail credit growth above the industry average, greater product adoption, and the ability to connect multiple financial needs around each customer.

Retail credit growth outpaces the market, Top 3 in card spending

From 2017 to 2025, VIB’s retail credit grew at an average annual rate of 23%, approximately 1.6 times the industry average. Sustaining this pace over many years demonstrates that the bank’s retail transformation has created a resilient and enduring growth engine.

In cards, VIB’s competitiveness is reflected in both growth and usage. In 2025, VIB became one of five banks in Vietnam with one million credit cards, while annual spending increased approximately 17 times compared with 2018. VIB ranked among the Top 3 in the market for card spending, with average spending per cardholder approximately 50% higher than the market average. Spending growing faster than the number of cards demonstrates VIB’s ability to embed its products into customers’ everyday needs, building its position through customers’ own choices.

Behind these results is VIB’s ability to organize its business around customers. The bank develops specialized models for different needs, connecting products with distribution, operations and risk management. For home lending, solutions are designed around repayment capacity and long-term financial plans. For cards, benefits are linked to spending behavior. For deposits, yield-generating options are aligned with customers’ cash flow needs.

Technology and talent bring these designs to life, enabling VIB to scale its business while maintaining service quality and effective risk control. During the same 2017–2025 period, VIB’s total assets grew at an average annual rate of 21%, while profit grew by 26% per year on average.

The success of the transformation is therefore reflected not only in business performance, but also in the capabilities the bank has built: understanding customer needs, developing solutions, operating efficiently and serving customers at scale. This provides the foundation for VIB to expand value from individual products to the entire customer relationship.

Leading the personalization trend, connecting value across the entire customer relationship

VIB builds its retail banking advantage on three pillars: financial benefits, customer experience and technology. Product flexibility is connected with service speed and operational capabilities, bringing personalization across multiple financial needs.

In terms of benefits, VIB brings flexibility into solution design, delivering enhanced value across customers’ transactions. One Card and Max Card allow customers to change their monthly benefit categories or select fee packages that suit their needs at different times. Deposit solutions expand customers’ options for generating returns based on their cash flow plans, such as the Super Accounts, which offer daily returns of up to 8% per year, as well as highly flexible certificate of deposit products with interest payment terms of 1, 3, 6 or 12 months and highly attractive interest rates. For home lending, VIB has established its position as the best bank for homeowners in Vietnam, offering flexible financial solutions that deliver practical benefits throughout customers’ homeownership journey: from principal repayments starting at VND 1 million per month for every VND 1 billion borrowed during the initial years, to fixed interest rates for up to five years, among other solutions.

VIB Up connects deposits, loans and cards while offering preferential benefits to privileged customers through a membership model, with benefits determined by the overall level of customer engagement. Each additional product can enhance the value customers receive throughout their relationship with the bank.

In terms of experience, VIB puts customers in control from accessing services to using products. MyVIB connects customers’ everyday banking needs, while Max enables customers to open cards, manage benefits, register for installment plans and cash loans online, track applications and sign contracts directly within the app. In 2025, 97% of individual customer transactions were conducted through digital channels. For home lending, approval time has been shortened to approximately 4–8 hours for eligible applications.

In technology, VIB has made integrated investments in its core systems, data infrastructure and service channels under its “Mobile First – Cloud First – AI First” strategy. Modernizing its core banking system on AWS, together with a unified data architecture, provides a foundation for scaling services, automating operations and accelerating product development. On MyVIB, ViePro, powered by AWS GenAI, together with GenAI Chatbot and VoiceBot, provides customers with 24/7 support in Vietnamese, bringing AI directly into the banking experience. In cards, Visa’s “Breakthrough Personalization with AI” solution recognized VIB as the first bank in Vietnam to apply AI to personalize credit cards. The application of AI and scoring technology also enables customers to apply entirely online for credit cards and unsecured loans within a record time of just 5–15 minutes, from application to being ready to use.

VIB Privilege Banking demonstrates how the three pillars converge in a single service model. Financial solutions are designed around customers’ cash flow needs; the Ownrora space on MyVIB uses AI to support asset allocation based on individual investment preferences; while Relationship Managers for Privileged Customers provide personalized advice aligned with each customer’s goals. Lifestyle privileges further enhance the experience based on individual interests and preferences.

This model was recently recognized by Global Business Outlook with the title “Most Innovative Privilege Banking – Vietnam 2026.” The recognition demonstrates how VIB’s personalization strategy has evolved beyond product-level choice to connect finance, technology and advisory services across the entire customer relationship.

From retail banking strength to the ambition of becoming a leading transaction bank

The capabilities VIB has built have taken the bank toward a broader ambition: to become a leading transaction bank through innovative solutions, personalized experiences and deeper partnerships. This direction extends VIB’s retail banking strengths into customers’ cash flows and everyday transactions.

Receiving a salary, buying a cup of coffee, paying a child’s tuition, booking a trip or saving for a home are all part of the same financial life. VIB aims to connect these needs so that banking services are conveniently available whenever customers need them, with solutions that adapt to their income, priorities and life plans.

Nearly a decade of transformation has brought VIB above-market retail growth, a Top 3 position in card spending, and large-scale personalization capabilities. The “Outstanding Retail Bank 2026” award marks this achievement. Building on the foundation it has created, VIB aims to transform its competitive strength in individual customer needs into a leading position in transaction banking — becoming an integral part of customers’ everyday cash flows while accompanying them throughout their long-term financial decisions.