Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - 2018 was the yearwitnessing the outstanding development of the new payment method via mPOSdevice. There was 27,500 places accepting payment via mPOS, posting 99 percentyear-on-year increase, according to the Vietnam Bank Card Association (VNBA).

The amount of mPOS payment points accounted for9 percent in the card acceptance network nationwide.

Data from the VNBA’s annual report in 2018 alsoshowed that the traditional POS payment acceptance network decreased by 8 percentcompared to its amount in 2017. This shows that the banks and payment units nolonger focus on developing traditional payment channels, but on new paymentchannels as mPOS, QR and e-Com.

Last year saw an explosion in the number of QRCode acceptance units, with nearly 58,000 payment points, which is an increaseof 600 percent compared to its number in 2017.

However, total payment transactions via QR wereonly 70 billion VND. In details, each QR payment point took only 1.2 millionVND, calculated to be less than 100,000 VND per month.

According to the expert’s reviews, this showsthat customers were still not familiar with QR Code payment. They did notrespond positively as expected.

The year 2018 also witnessed the development ofe-commerce, making an important contribution to the growth of Online e-Compayment segment, amounting to nearly 48 trillion VND (over 2 billion USD).

The habit of using cards in payment was stillpopular, especially international credit cards. Although international cardsaccounted for only 13 percent (nearly 11 million cards) in the total of typesof cards, its payment revenue took 52 percent of total card paymenttransactions.

2018 was also the year of a strong developmentcoming from mPOS payment method. There were seven banks deploying mPOS deviceto the market, including the big banks such as Vietinbank, Sacombank, BIDV,Vietcombank.

A representative of mPOS Vietnam which providesmPOS solutions for the banks told Viet Nam News that mPOSexpected to expand its number of devices used in the market to 80,000nationwide in 2019, in all business areas that could contribute to the societyof non-cash payment.

The experts also say that when a series ofpayment companies mobilise dozens to hundreds of millions of dollars from theinvestors, this year will promise a further explosion of the electronic paymentin Vietanm, especially when the Government policy allows to link the paymentaccounts with the mobile numbers that helps to universalise the non-cashpayments to all citizens.-VNS