In a Dec. 28 press release, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) said significant progress has been made in recent years to stimulate growth of cashless payments in rural and inaccessible areas of the country.
Đinh Quang Dân, the deputy head of Agribank’s customer services, notes that more accounts are being opened by people from island and mountainous regions of Vietnam. In his view, this could indicate a shift in consumer behavior and positive attitude toward digital banking.
Since 2015, SBV has been developing programs and friendly policies to promote adoption of digital banking services. The bank has partnered with and approved numerous remote payment providers to bring classless payments closer to rural and isolated regions.
A recent report from the SBV shows that there were 2.34 million mobile money accounts as of the end of September, 1.62 million of which were in rural areas. In addition, over 14,500 vendors had integrated mobile money, pushing the number of processed transactions to over 15 million.
The SBV is still opening its doors to more collaborations
SBV is further taking its cashless payment adoption advocacy a notch higher by urging local governments to create digital markets for well-liked commodities. Ultimately, their mission is to encourage residents to adopt digital payments and eliminate the use of hard cash as they soften users to embrace new technologies.
Temenos, a digital banking platform, on November 10, revealed that it’s working with Vietnam’s Sacombank to provide seamless banking services to its over 15 million customers.
The Temenos and Sacombank collaboration will create a cashless ecosystem for online services like e-commerce, social networks, and many others. Sacombank CEO Bui Van Dung describes this partnership as an “unavoidable breakthrough” as they strive for efficient service delivery.
In July, HDBank and Unilever Vietnam teamed up to provide finance and banking services to distributors and retailers empowering customers to quickly cashless payments from their smartphones.
Vietnam is also routing for mass adoption of crypto
On Jul. 5, 2021, the Vietnam prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, called for a full-scale crypto implementation. Pham instructed SBV to initiate a pilot implementation of cryptocurrencies from 2021 to 2023. The pilot program will give the government enough time to gauge how the country will benefit.
A Jul. 5, 2022 report by Visa revealed that Vietnam is amongst the top countries in Southeast Asia, with nearly two third of its citizens engaging in crypto.
The spike in crypto adoption in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand was due to the COVID-19 pandemic that accelerated the shift to cashless payment.
