On March 22, 2019, in Nha Trang city, Vietnam Bank Card Association held their Annual Meeting of 2019. The report at the Meeting showed that the bankcard operation continued a successful year of 2018.
By the end of 2018, the number of cards in circulation reached over 86 million, an increase of 12 percent compared to 2017. In particular, international card growth was higher than that of domestic cards, at 17 percent compared to 11 percent. Therefore, the proportion of the number of cards in circulation also changed, in which, international cards accounted for 13 percent of the total cards, up from 11 percent. However, the number of domestic cards still took a large proportion, by the end of 2018 was 87 percent.
However, in 2018, card usage growth continued to fall to a low level, only eight percent compared to 2017 (2017 and 2016 growth rate was 12 percent and 22 percent respectively), and the value reached over 2.45 million dong, including cash withdrawals.
Particularly, domestic card usage only grew by two percent. Meanwhile, international card usage continued to grow at a high rate, reaching 44 percent in 2018 and with this result, international card usage accounted for 17 percent, from 13 percent in 2017.
The structure of the proportion of international cards usage increased gradually over the years and reached 17 percent in 2018. Domestic cards are still used mainly for cash withdrawal (the proportion of cash withdrawals was still high at 94 percent).
Regarding card payment turnover, the total value of 2018 reached nearly 3.058 trillion dong, up 28 percent compared to 2017. Specifically, international card payment turnover increased higher than domestic card (45 percent versus 25 percent) and reached 17 percent by the end of 2018.
Sales payment spending grew faster at 30 percent. Proportion of international card payment revenue increased from 15 percent in 2017 to 17 percent in 2018. The proportion of domestic card withdrawal decreased slightly by one percent to 91 percent of the total cash withdrawal turnover.
Notably, the total number of card acceptance units in circulation on the market reached 304,486 units, an increase of 17 percent. But the number of ATMs circulating in the market by the end of 2018 reached 18,434 machines, up four percent compared to 2017. Meanwhile, the number of POS machines decreased by eight percent.
According to the report, the number of POS tends to decrease due to the development of new forms of payment on the market starting from 2017 such as Ecom (e-commerce), QR, mPOS with the high growth in quantity in 2018.
