PFCT said on Tuesday it signed a strategic partnership agreement, or MOU, with Vietnam alternative data-focused fintech company Hi-Tech.

Through the cooperation, the companies expect to improve the accuracy of credit screening at Vietnamese financial institutions and build a localised AI credit-scoring system that can cover customer groups that are difficult to assess using only existing financial data.

To that end, PFCT and Hi-Tech will pursue cooperation around two business pillars. First, they will push a business to supply AI credit-scoring solutions to Vietnamese financial institutions.

PFCT will use consumer, income and behavioural alternative data held by Hi-Tech in Vietnam and Southeast Asia to develop and supply AI credit-scoring solutions optimised for the product characteristics and risk structure of financial institutions' credit products. Hi-Tech will be responsible for local market analysis and finding financial institution and fintech customers.

They will also divide roles and cooperate in the business of alternative data-based credit assessment and data products. When Hi-Tech launches data products based on alternative data secured locally, PFCT will participate as a key technology partner providing AI credit-scoring models and technology infrastructure to analyse and evaluate the data.

Under the plan, Hi-Tech will supply data products that include credit-scoring results, and PFCT will expand into the data business based on its AI modelling and assessment technologies.

In both businesses, PFCT's AI risk management solution AIRPACK will be used as core technology infrastructure. PFCT plans to build an AI credit-scoring system in the Vietnamese market that leads to tangible business results based on its global business experience and technical capabilities.

Su-hwan Lee, PFCT's CEO, said the agreement was an important starting point to localise and provide alternative data-based AI credit-scoring models and risk management solutions to Vietnam's financial market. He said PFCT plans to help Vietnamese financial institutions set more sophisticated credit strategies and manage risk effectively, and to use that as a foothold to keep expanding its alternative data-based financial solutions business across Southeast Asia's financial markets.

Nguyen Nam Phong, Hi-Tech's general director, said combining Hi-Tech's accumulated high-quality alternative data with PFCT's AI credit-scoring technology is expected to increase the value of data use and enhance both the soundness and efficiency of Vietnam's financial market.