On February 10, 2023, The Sherpa Company Limited, a subsidiary of Masan Group Corporation (“Masan”), has officially received the offshore investment registration certificate to carry out investment activities in Singapore. The investment registration certification ceremony took place at the Business Forum within the framework of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s official visit to Singapore. The investment worth up to USD105 million for 25% of share ownership of Trust IQ Pte. Ltd. (“TS”), a Singapore-based tech company, equivalent to up to 9.388.756 shares.
The project is part of Masan’s strategic goal by 2025 to create a Consumer – Retail – Technology ecosystem capable of capturing 80% of Vietnamese consumers’ wallet. Realizing that goal, Masan has been gradually optimizing the ecosystem by integrating strategic pieces such as financial services, banking, insurance, healthcare, entertainment, etc. into a wide network of points of sale and digital technology and artificial intelligence platform.
TS operates primarily in software development, technology and applications on a global scale, which includes the development of comprehensive, accurate credit risk assessment methods based on AI technology and computer science. The investment in TS will accelerate Masan’s application of artificial intelligence in retail (Retail AI), and artificial intelligence in consumption (Consumer AI). Specifically:
- Building a personalization platform: Masan and TS will work together to build a platform of artificial intelligence in retail (Retail AI), and artificial intelligence in consumption (Consumer AI) .
- Building a loyalty program: applying and developing AI and ML technologies into the consumer sector, integrating offline to online contributing to an optimal O2O experience and minimizing consumption costs for the Vietnamese.
- Building a credit access platform for consumers on the basis of loyalty program: issuing credit cards for mass consumers without requiring proof of income. WinCommerce (the operator of WinMart/WinMart+/WIN retail chain) with a high-tech platform from TS will cooperate with domestic financial partners to drive new credit cards usage, towards the goal of universalization of credit access for Vietnamese people.
Aligned with the Party, State and Government’s orientation to promote national digital transformation, Masan plays the pioneering role of domestic economic groups. With the integration of technology pieces from TS into its consumer-retail platform, Masan Group aims to become the leading enterprise meeting daily consumer needs of nearly 100 million Vietnamese consumers on both offline and online platforms.
