Cashless payment promoted in rural, remote areas

Illustrative image (Source: nhandan.vn)

Thanks to efforts of the Government and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), cashless payment services have been promoted in rural and remote areas.

According to Dinh Quang Dan, Vice Director of Customer Service Department of Agribank, in the past three years, the number of customers opening new accounts and registering digital banking services in far-flung areas has been rising, which reflects a change in the payment habit of people.

Particularly, the introduction of Mobile Money service has become an important motivation for cashless payment in Vietnam. According to the SBV, so far, the country has nearly 72,000 transaction posts providing cashless payment services, of which, 39,000 are in rural and remote areas. In the first nine months of 2022, nearly 14 million customers, of whom 37.5% were from rural areas, used cashless payment services with total transaction value of 167.68 trillion VND (7.09 billion USD). According to Pham Anh Tuan, Director of the SBV’s Payment Department, this is an impressive figure.

For Mobile Money service alone, as of the end of September, the service had 2.34 million accounts, including 1.62 million from rural and island areas. To date, about 15 million transactions worth nearly 950 billion VND have been conducted.

Deputy General Director of Viettel Digital Truong Quang Viet said that Viettel Digital expects to have 2 million users of its Mobile Money service, 60% of whom are in rural and remote areas, with more than 3,000 transaction points as of the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, Deputy General Director of the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (Napas) Nguyen Hoang Long said that Napas has covered more than 50 banks.

Tuan said that in the time to come, the banking sector will continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security to roll out effective piloted measures to further promote cashless payment in rural and remote areas./.

VNA