Vietnam emerges as Southeast Asia’s next fintech battleground

TOKYO/HO CHI MINH CITY — For Vietnamese fintech startup MoMo, the key to winning the battle against Grab, Sea and other rivals for the country’s 100 million consumers may be a simple cup of coffee.

Before Vietnam’s latest COVID lockdown, the Ho Chi Minh City-based company ran promotions with some of the country’s biggest coffee chains, including Highlands Coffee, a fast-growing brand with more than 300 outlets. MoMo users got a discount for using the app to place and pay for an order that they then picked up at a scheduled time. The promotion was designed to give them a taste of the convenience of the all-in-one app.