The ratio of cashless payment in Vietnam has increased significantly in recent years to 21%, but cash payment still accounts for 79 percent of transactions.
This is the figure given at Vietnam Retail Banking Forum 2019, organised by International Data Group in Vietnam (IDG) in cooperation with Vietnam Banking Association held on November 28 in HCM City.
According to statistics of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the current bank account number is 45.8 million, accounting for 63 percent of the population.
The results of the survey on cashless payment in Southeast Asia by Le Thanh Tam, general director of IDG Vietnam, showed that the rate of cash payment in Vietnam was still high, up to 79%, and the proportion of cashless payment transactions had improved significantly to 21%. In cashless payment, card payment accounted for a very high proportion, other forms of payment such as QR codes, e-wallets were quite low.
However, the ratio of cashless payment transactions to total retail sales is still low, and the development of cashless payment activities is limited.
The number of fintech companies is high, but they only focus on consumer payment but not cover other types of payment and other high-end services. E-wallets face the biggest barrier: the payment needs to be linked to a bank account, but the current regulations do not allow users to directly deposit into e-wallets.
However, according to Nguyen Hung Nguyen, deputy general director of Vietnam National Payment Joint Stock Company (Napas), the payment market in Vietnam is growing very well and there has been no sign of slowing down. About 80 percent of retail transactions still use cash, especially small transactions are also opportunities to promote cashless payments.
The chief economist of Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), Dr Can Van Luc, said that recent surveys showed that fintech customers had changed significantly in the past five years, though payment services accounted for more than 70%. The market share of payment service among fintech was also fiercely competing with traditional commercial banks.
Competitive pressure to keep market share pushes the commercial banks to change, in which, digitalisation is the solution many banks choose to create competitiveness, and increase customer experience.
Hoang Viet Cuong, deputy general director of Nam A Commercial Joint Stock Bank, said the digital banking channel would help customers increase their experience in cashless payment activities without going to the counter. This trend had become more and more popular as customers were increasingly busy and the demand for online and electronic payment took place throughout the day, not just the administrative hours as before. One of the key points that the Nam A Bank leader said would bring robots into the transaction points in the near future, to increase the customer experience.
However, in order to successfully deploy digital banking, banks are still waiting for a clear legal basis from SBV. According to Hoang Viet Cuong, the regulatory agency should soon issue legal documents that allow banks to deploy to open online accounts in combination with eKYC (electronic identification of customers), and a model of an agent bank to serve customers widely in rural areas.
