The above is information at the Workshop "Cashless Payment - Driving Force for Digital Economic Growth" held on June 14 in Ho Chi Minh City, organized by the State Bank in coordination with Tuoi Tre Newspaper within the framework of the Cashless Day 2025. Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc attended and delivered a speech at the workshop.
Compound growth up to 92%/year
Mr. Sapan Shah, Senior Vice President, Payment Acceptance Network, Asia Pacific , Mastercard, said that Vietnam has made important strides in its journey to a cashless economy. However, the potential for digital payment development is still huge.
According to Mastercard data, the total number of contactless transactions in Vietnam is recording a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of up to 92%/year in the period from Q4/2022 to Q4/2024.
Growth is driven by the convenience and speed of this payment method, along with the growing acceptance of Apple Pay, Google Pay and open-loop public transport systems.
Notably, 60% of point-of-sale transactions are made through cashless payment methods, according to research by Stonewater Partners. Of these, e-wallets (domestic and international) account for 33%, and payment cards account for 26%.
To meet changing consumer needs and ensure secure transactions, governments , banks and financial institutions are constantly modernizing payment infrastructure with innovative technologies.
Modern payment technologies are becoming more popular such as Tap to Pay/Tap to Phone, which allows contactless payments to be fast, secure and cost-effective, making them easily accessible to both users and payment acceptance units. In addition, payment data encryption helps protect user information during online and offline transactions, enhancing reliability and security.
"The State Bank of Vietnam is playing a leading role in promoting the roadmap for cashless payments across the national financial ecosystem. At the same time, this ecosystem is increasingly strengthened thanks to close coordination between banks, e-wallets, fintech companies and international payment networks, thereby contributing to accelerating the popularization of digital payments to all classes of users," said a representative of Mastercard.
A recent survey conducted jointly by Coc Coc Research and Tuoi Tre Newspaper also showed that up to 59% of daily transactions of Vietnamese people used cashless payments. In the age group of 25 - 44, this rate was up to 72%.
In fact, non-cash payments are now more than a habit, they are an important foundation for digital transformation, economic growth and national modernization. This is demonstrated by shortening payment times and increasing the speed of goods circulation. Digital transactions also help create transparency in financial management.
Citing statistics from the banking industry, Mr. Nguyen Hung Nguyen, Deputy General Director of the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS), said that in the first quarter of 2025, Vietnamese people conducted 5.5 billion cashless transactions; of which 4.5 billion were on digital channels with a value of VND40 million billion. This is an extremely impressive number. Vietnam's average transaction per capita has approached that of Thailand and India and is only slightly behind China.
According to Mr. Nguyen, this growth is driven by a new lifestyle in the digital environment, which means that people have the need to share, experience services and have all their needs met in the digital environment. People can now perform services such as education, public services, transportation, shopping, etc. all in the digital environment, thereby creating momentum for the development of the digital economy.
Perfecting the legal framework for digital payments
According to Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Pham Tien Dung, looking back over the past years, cashless payments have played a key role, not only promoting the efficiency of banking and financial activities, but also contributing to increasing transparency in economic management, promoting e-commerce, public services and enhancing national competitiveness. Cashless payments in Vietnam have made strong and positive developments.
State Bank data shows that the interbank electronic payment system processes an average of VND820 trillion per day while the financial switching and electronic clearing system processes 26 million transactions per day.
The national credit information infrastructure has been upgraded to increase the ability to process and update data automatically, while expanding the collection and updating of data inside and outside the industry with a high rate of successful data updates from credit institutions reaching over 98%. More than 110.8 million individual customer records and more than 711 thousand corporate customer records have been compared with biometric information.
By the end of 2024, Vietnam will have more than 204.5 million individual customer payment accounts, more than 154 million bank cards in circulation; 86.97% of adults have bank accounts, the value of non-cash payments is 26 times higher than GDP.
"Many friendly banking products and services with rich utilities, bringing practical values to meet the diverse needs of customers. Vietnam is also a pioneer in connecting cross-border retail payments via QR codes with Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, aiming to expand in the Asian region. These are encouraging results, demonstrating a clear change in the awareness and consumer behavior of people and businesses as well as the transformation efforts of state management agencies," said Mr. Dung.
Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc emphasized that the development of cashless payments not only benefits the banking industry but also has a positive impact on the national economy. In particular, in the context of strong e-commerce development, cashless payments are an indispensable factor to promote the development of the digital economy.
In recent times, the Government has issued many important laws and decrees to facilitate the development of digital platforms and promote cashless payments. In addition to positive results, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that there are still some challenges such as the habit of using cash of a part of the population and the fear of keeping transaction traces; technology infrastructure in some places still has weak signals. In particular, security risks are a big challenge, such as fake messages related to citizen identification or OTP codes. Some online payment platforms have not been completed such as issues related to "cryptocurrency", cross-border payments...
To promote cashless payments - an important link in the digital economy, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc emphasized a number of solutions and development orientations in the coming time. Accordingly, the Government will continue to research and promulgate legal regulations to create a solid legal framework, to both handle violations and promote the development of cashless payments.
The government is also studying the issuance of pilot legal regulations on the development of digital assets and cryptocurrencies. According to him, although this is a difficult and risky issue, it is a global trend and Vietnam cannot stand aside.
At the same time, the Government also pays attention to upgrading and developing information technology infrastructure, taking leading information technology enterprises such as Viettel and VNPT as the core to develop fiber optic infrastructure, 5G technology towards 6G...; at the same time, encouraging enterprises to develop new, creative, convenient and fast payment services.
Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc emphasized that all parties need to pay attention to solutions to improve security and prevent cybercrime in the context of promoting the digital economy. This is an important solution to protect consumers, avoid cases of fraud, loss of money, etc.; at the same time, it is also a key factor that needs to be strengthened both legally and technically to ensure sustainable and safe development for digital economic activities and cashless payments.
Source: https://doanhnghiepvn.vn/kinh-te/giai-phap-va-dinh-huong-phat-trien-thanh-toan-khong-dung-tien-mat/20250616063745822
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