Vietnamese consumers keep over $140mn in e-wallets

Bao Anh - Anh Hong Tuesday | 01/10/2023 09:57

A man scans a quick response (QR) code with his mobile phone to make a payment in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Ngoc Phuong / Tuoi Tre

More than VND3.3 trillion ($140.6 million) is kept in e-wallet accounts to help holders stay ready for convenient transactions in Vietnam.

The SBV has licensed 45 e-wallet service providers, which have operated 120 million e-wallet accounts so far, including 47 million activated accounts and 29 million active accounts, according to Pham Anh Tuan, director general of the Payment Department under the State Bank of Vietnam.

The total balance of these accounts has exceeded VND3.3 trillion.

By the end of the third quarter of 2022, the whole banking system had handled about VND937 trillion ($39.9 billion) worth of e-wallet transactions and VND929 billion ($39.6 million) worth of mobile-money transactions.

SBV statistics also show that non-cash payments increased 85.6 percent in quantity and 31.39 percent in value in the first 11 months of 2022 over the same period in 2021.

Notably, transactions made via the Internet went up 89.36 percent and 40.55 percent while those performed via mobile phones soared 116.1 percent and 92.3 percent, respectively.

Payment made using quick response (QR) codes surged 182.5 percent in quantity and 210.6 percent in value.

Transactions made via point-of-sale (POS) machines, meanwhile, picked up 53.57 percent and 48.78 percent, respectively.

Transactions via automated teller machines (ATMs) also jumped 13.28 percent and 14.04 percent, respectively.

Nguyen Duc Lenh, deputy director of the SBV’s Ho Chi Minh City branch, said that the number of POS machines in the southern metropolis grew ten percent in 2022 from 2021.

Lenh hailed these figures as a positive sign of people’s shift toward cashless payments.

Source: Tuoi Tre