Phones replace wallets.
During his trip to China on April 30th, LHQuang, a tourist from Hanoi, hardly used any cash. What impressed him was being able to pay directly with VCB Digibank at local shops without having to exchange Chinese Yuan beforehand.
“I went to China but didn't have time to exchange money for Yuan, so I opened VCB Digibank and scanned the QR code to pay directly from my account in Vietnam. The transaction was processed quickly, and I didn't have to carry cash or worry about exchanging foreign currency,” Quang recounted. According to him, scanning the QR code directly is quite convenient, and many stores even offer discounts for first-time transactions, similar to the digital payment experience that is becoming popular in Vietnam.
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| Users experience cross-border QR payment. |
A few years ago, this experience was still quite unfamiliar to many Vietnamese users. But with the development of QR payments and cross-border connectivity, phones are gradually replacing wallets on many trips.
In Asia, QR codes are becoming one of the fastest-growing payment methods. In Vietnam, Vietcombank is also joining this trend through OneQR and QR Outbound, allowing customers to scan codes directly from their domestic accounts at numerous acceptance points abroad.
From cafes and convenience stores to local markets, QR codes are becoming a familiar form of payment for Vietnamese people. Financial transactions are therefore becoming more natural and seamless in daily life.
Banks are linked to digital identity.
If QR codes are changing payment habits, then VNeID and electronic identification are ushering in a new era for digital banking.
A representative from Vietcombank – the leading bank in the system – stated that they have recently completed a large number of online loans using VNeID authentication and remote digital signatures, eliminating the need for customers to meet with bank staff in person. Procedures that previously required numerous documents and in-person signatures have now been streamlined to just a few electronic authentication steps on the application.
In recent years, Vietcombank has been one of the pioneering banks in implementing biometric authentication via chip-embedded citizen identification cards, integrating VNeID, remote digital signatures, and advanced authentication solutions such as SoftOTP. By the end of 2025, the bank had collected biometric data for over 15 million customers, approximately 2.5 million social security linked accounts via VNeID, and disbursed approximately VND 8,350 billion through personal digital signatures.
This trend is occurring in many countries around the world . India is connecting Aadhaar with UPI to build a large-scale digital finance ecosystem, Singapore is integrating Singpass with banking and payment services, and Brazil is developing Pix as a nationwide instant payment infrastructure. The common thread in these models is that banks are becoming increasingly integrated with national data and digital identities.
Alongside online transactions, the in-store experience is also being increasingly digitized. With VCB Tablet, customers can perform transactions directly on the digital device instead of many traditional paper-based procedures, helping to shorten transaction time and synchronize data right at the counter.
Bank employees use VCB Tablets to assist in collecting biometric data and opening banking services at industrial parks outside of Vietcombank's branch locations.
In 2026, VCB Tablet became the only Vietnamese product to reach the finals in the Digital Innovation category at the ASEAN Digital Awards. This also marks a milestone demonstrating that Vietcombank's digital transformation is not limited to its mobile application, but extends throughout its entire customer service journey.
From a real-life perspective, these changes are evident in many familiar moments: a parent paying their child's tuition on their phone during rush hour, a customer authenticating a transaction using biometrics in just seconds, or many young people opening online savings accounts overnight to "follow their idols" and hunt for codes to participate in the game show "Quan Nha Haha" – where the story of connecting financial experiences with culture, food, and modern life has become a hot topic of discussion on social media recently.
Digital transformation on the foundation of a major bank.
What is noteworthy about Vietcombank's digital transformation journey is not a single product, but the scale of deployment and the level of user adoption. By 2025, nearly 99% of the bank's retail transactions will be conducted through digital channels; the digital ecosystem will process approximately 1.17 billion transactions with a total value of about VND 14.7 million trillion, and nearly 18 million customers will be active on VCB Digibank.
To meet that scale, Vietcombank has been gradually building a digital ecosystem including VCB Digibank, DigiBiz, CashUp, Online Lending, along with iCare and iSchool platforms for the healthcare and education sectors. A significant milestone in this process was the successful go-live of its Core Banking system in 2020 – a platform considered the "heart" of modern banking digital transformation.
Building on this foundation, Vietcombank continues to expand in the direction of data and AI, integrating big data and modern forecasting models into governance, business operations, and risk management. This is also the direction that many international banks such as DBS, JPMorgan, and BBVA are pursuing: digital transformation not only for faster transactions, but also for more efficient, smarter, and safer operations.
What makes Vietcombank unique is that its digital transformation is taking place within a bank that is among the largest in Vietnam in terms of assets, data, customers, and security requirements, yet it maintains top-tier business performance, stability, and asset quality.
Digital banking can start with a QR code scan or a single VNeID verification. But what makes the long-term difference is the ability to maintain convenience, security, and stability on a scale of millions of customers every day.
Source: https://thoibaonganhang.vn/song-tren-nhung-cu-cham-so-182392.html
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