China Merchants Bank and China CITIC Bank are developing their credit card businesses to stimulate retail income.

Despite current economic challenges, Vietnam’s banking sector has promising longer term potential due to its relatively young and increasingly affluent population.

The contribution of consumer finance to the overall retail loans in Asia Pacific in 2015 ranged from 2% to 56%. Its share to retail loans has increased in markets like Indonesia but has declined in Hong Kong and Thailand. The growth of consumer finance per country also varied, slowing down in Taiwan and growing faster in the Philippines.

Formal financial institutions have connected only 22% of the Indonesian population. A huge potential for the financial sector still needs to be explored, and digitised lending, which combines retail banking with financial technology, should be a future solution.