Cashless services explode in Vietnam

The Department of Payments at the State Bank of Vietnam reported a strong rise in payments over electronic channels between January and September, compared to the same period last year.

Accordingly, the value of online payments rose by 18.3%, while transactions over mobile apps and e-wallets rose by 126% and 161% respectively.

The number of transactions over Internet, mobile and e-wallet channels also rose 33%, 30% and 28% respectively.

"Mobile payment is becoming a new trend with the rise of technologies such as QR codes, contact and contactless payments, and the tokenization of card information," said Nghiem Thanh Son, deputy director of the department.

The first months of 2018 saw the number of users and the value of transactions through electronic channels such as online, mobile and e-wallets rocket at many banks.

At Sacombank, statistics show that as of October, the number of registrations for online banking reached over 1.3 million accounts and for mobile banking 1.1 million accounts. The total value of transactions per month through both channels exceeded VND108 trillion (US$4.63 billion).

For VietinBank, the country’s second largest lender by assets, the number of internet banking users in the first half of this year surged 114% over the same period last year to a total of 1.5 million accounts and VND44.26 trillion (US$1.90 billion) in total transaction value.

Its mobile banking users also reached 1.5 million, engaging in transactions totalling VND64.35 trillion (US$2.76 billion) between January and June.

Over 7 million people are using digital services provided by MBBank. The average transaction value per month reached VND27.4 trillion (US$1.17 billion), with digital transactions making up approximately 2.6 million out of 3 million total monthly transactions seen at this bank.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the State Bank’s Ho Chi Minh branch, noted that the number of online banking customers has seen average annual increase of 20% in recent years.

Minh said that in order to continue developing non-cash payment channels, credit institutions should pay attention to linking their cashless systems with the public sector, specifically in areas like health, education, payroll and utilities.

Cashless services should also expand to include online payment options for public services like buses, trains and other smart urban solutions, he said.