Merchant lending risk scoring model in Vietnam

• Sep 10, 2025
• 1 min

SoBanHang is Vietnam’s leading B2B business app, which enables more than 500,000 merchants to manage sales, inventory, and digital finances on their smartphones. The app collectively processes approximately USD 2.5 billion in annual transactions. The institution acknowledged the lack of robust credit scoring models for its merchant base. It sought to develop a data-informed, predictive framework to assess credit risk and improve portfolio quality.

MSC collaborated with SoBanHang to create a sophisticated ML-driven credit scoring system customized for micromerchants. The project included rigorous model validation methods, such as, careful tuning, cross-validation, and real-world testing, to ensure predictive reliability. MSC also designed a merchant self-assessment tool to support financial inclusion and transparency. This tool enabled entrepreneurs to gauge their creditworthiness firsthand. Field pilots with merchants helped refine usability and effectiveness.

This work significantly enhanced SoBanHang’s risk assessment capabilities, enabled more confident lending decisions, and increased transparency for merchants. The introduction of the self-assessment tool also promoted greater financial awareness among users. This catalyzed a stronger and more inclusive digital lending ecosystem in Vietnam.

SoBanHang commissioned this project