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A forum to promote non-cash payments in businesses. Photo: H. Diu

On the afternoon of August 26, in Hanoi, under the direction of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), a Business Forum organized a forum to implement Decision No. 2545/QD-TTg - Promoting non-cash payments in businesses.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Vu Tien Loc, President of VCCI emphasized that Covid-19 has made us change faster in digital transformation, change business strategy, product strategy and distribution channel strategy. Currently, most new products and modern payment methods have been studied and deployed in Vietnam.

Statistics of the State Bank (SBV) show that there are currently 75 payment service providers deploying internet payment services and 45 units providing mobile phone payment services.

In the first six months of 2020, the number of transactions via the internet channel was more than 200 million, with a value of about VND12.9 million (up 36% in value compared to the same period in 2019). The number of transactions via mobile phone channel was more than 472 million, with a value of about VND4.9 million (up 178% and 177% respectively over the same period in 2019).

Card payment service continues to be developed by banks. By the end of June 2020, the number of domestic payment transactions via bank cards reached over 171 million with a value of about VND399 trillion (up 20.9% and 9.1% respectively over the same period last year).

In addition to cards, QR Code payment service has been promoted by credit institutions and payment intermediaries, with about 30 banks launching the QR Code payment service with more than 70,000 QR Code payment points in the whole market.

Non-cash payments have benefited people, businesses and the economy. According to Dr. Mac Quoc Anh, Vice President and General Secretary of Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, online shopping and payments are increasingly developing, so this will be an advantage for Vietnamese businesses. Moreover, non-cash payment also helps prevent tax loss.

However, Loc said that Vietnam has not yet achieved the expected target, the rate of using cash is still high. According to the International Data Group (IDG), in 2019, nearly 40% of the Vietnamese population had a bank accounts but 80% of them still used cash for daily expenses.

The cause of this situation was that financial institutions have built their own payment equipment system at a payment point, which is both wasteful and cannot take advantage of the common infrastructure. New payment methods such as QR Codes and biometrics have begun to develop but have not yet been planned and evaluated for widespread deployment, according to the VCCI’s president.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Binh, Institute of Financial Strategy and Policy, accompanying services such as electronic invoices and digital signatures are aproblem. In particular, the habit of using cash is also a barrier, especially small and micro businesses are afraid of using modern payment methods because they cannot hide their revenues and this affects tax payments.

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Therefore, experts and businesses at the forum said that Vietnam should consider the synchronous construction of payment service infrastructure as the core and focus; continue to improve legal corridors, mechanisms and policies; and implement a comprehensive financial strategy to 2025 with a vision to 2030 according to Decision No. 149 / QD-TTg.