Hanoi (VNA) – The Government’s policyof promoting cashless payment has triggered the spread of online payments inVietnam as well as the race of new technologies, contributing to boosting thedigital economy.

A survey by SAPO – a multi-channel sales andmanagement platform – on 15,000 sellers nationwide in 2023 revealed that up to43.8% accepted payments via bank transfer, with 15.3% using VietQR codes.

Banks are also offering various supporting programmesto sellers like creating a QR code for quick money transfer and gifting a QR-codedisplay board to each store, SAPO said.

At the same time, they have cooperated with softwarepartners to introduce other useful functions and launch programmes to stimuluscashless payments.

According to the National Payment Corporation ofVietnam (Napas), in the third quarter of 2023, payments via VietQR codesdoubled to more than 100 million transactions per month. On the Payoo system,payments via QR codes also increased 6% in volume and 30% in value quarter-to-quarter.

This payment method has already been used for utilities billpayment (electricity, water, TV and internet services, school and hospital fees),with the number of transactions up 2.6-fold from the previous quarter.

Paying via QR codes is welcomed by both the young andthe senior, Napas said, adding that the service fee is more competitive thanothers such as card payment, making it more preferable tosellers, especially small retailers.

Dang Tuyet Dung, Vietnam and Laos country manager ofVisa, the world’s leader in digital payments, said Vietnam has quickly adaptedto digital payments, citing statistics showing that last year, 66% of consumersused online card payments, while 70% used online or in-app mobile walletpayments, a dramatic increase from 61% in 2022.

This means a lucrative opportunity for providers ofonline payment services. They are now trying to increase the security of thispayment method by applying advanced technologies like biometric authentication(fingerprint or palm scanning, face recognition, and heartbeat analysis).

Cutting-edge technologies are also expected to boostthe choice of QR payments for convenient and error-free transactions.Activating the payment process via voice is predicted to see a rise as wellwhen AI technologies are better implemented on smartphones.

Vietnam is trying to approach state-of-the-arttechnologies in cashless payments in order to boost the development of its digitaleconomy and satisfy socio-economic development requirements in general./.