“By the end of December 2018, interbank electronic payment turnover was compared with the national payment system with 73 quadrillion dong, 13 times higher than 2018 Gross Domestic Products (GDP),” said Pham Tien Dung, director of Payment Department of The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), at a press conference organised by SBV on 7th January 2019.
According to Dung, the number and average transaction value that the system handles are over 544 thousand transactions per day, over 289 trillion dong per day (an increase of 25 percent and 24 percent respectively compared to 2017). This is a record high ever.
The automatic clearing house (ACH) for retail payment transactions was also in the final testing process before being officially operate to serve customers.
Besides, Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and Point of Sale (POS) network is also being invested, upgraded and repaired by banks to serve customers. As of September 2018 end, there were about 18,173 ATMs nationwide and about 294,500 POS (up respectively 4.5 percent and 13 percent over the same period in 2017).
Regarding technology development and payment services, in the first nine months of 2018, the number of domestic payment transactions using cards reached nearly 167 million transactions (up 21 percent compared to the same period in 2017) with transaction value of 442 trillion dong.
Statistics show that although the proportion of cash withdrawal transactions at ATM has increased over the years, the growth rate in 2018 tends to decrease (the amount and value of cash withdrawal transactions via ATM in the first nine months of 2017 increased by 17 percent and 22 percent year over year (y-o-y), while these rates in the same period of 2018 was 12 percent and 16 percent y-o-y).
Along with that, electronic payment via Internet and mobile phones achieved remarkable results, attracting a large number of customers; in the first nine months of 2018, the number of financial transactions via Internet channels was more than 178 million transactions with a transaction value of about 11 million dong (up 33 percent and 18 percent y-o-y respectively); the number of financial transactions via mobile phone channel was nearly 122 million transactions with a trading value of nearly 1.1 million billion dong (up respectively 29 percent and 128 percent y-o-y).
Many banks have applied new and modern technologies into payment operations on mobile devices such as applying biometrics (fingerprints, faces, voices, etc.), using Quick Response (QR Code), technology to encrypt card information (Tokenisation), non-contact payment, mPOS technology, etc.
Also in the previous year, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has submitted to the prime minister for approval the project of speeding up payment via banks for public services: taxes, electricity, water, tuition, hospital fees and social programme payments (Decision No. 241/QD-TTg).
Accordingly, there were 50 banks agreed to coordinate for electronic tax collection across 63 provinces, cities and all districts across the country; 27 banks and 10 payment service providers cooperate to collect electricity bills; 100 percent of medical facilities under the Ministry of Health have started to carry out a scheme to coordinate with banks to collect money for medical care; the number of people receiving social insurance and unemployment benefits via personal accounts accounts for about 21 percent of the total.
According to Dung, a highlight of banking technology in 2018 is marked by SBV’s issuance of the basic standards set “Technical specification of QR Code displayed from the payment acceptance unit in Vietnam” (Decision 1928/QD-NHNN dated 5th October 2018) as a basis for credit institutions and payment service provider to uniformly apply a standard in the Vietnam market to enhance the level of safety, security, and increase utility for customers using payment services.
