You can now 'swipe' your phone to pay instead of an ATM card in Vietnam

For the first time, Vietnamese users can touch their phones to POS machines to pay instead of swiping with bank cards.

Samsung Vina Electronics Company and National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) have just announced the Samsung Pay mobile payment solution for customers who are cardholders of banks in Vietnam.

This is a payment application on Samsung mobile phones operating on the financial switching infrastructure and digital payment infrastructure of NAPAS, connecting with the banking system to provide mobile payment services.

Domestic ATM cardholders of 6 banks: VietinBank, Vietcombank, BIDV, Sacombank, Shinhan Vietnam Bank, ABBank can make payment transactions using Samsung Pay at any card accepting unit in Vietnam by simply using a Samsung phone with the application installed to touch the card swiping machine (POS machine).

Thanks to the customer's card information registered with this application in advance, when paying, customers do not need to present their card and do not need to worry about having their card information stolen during the payment process.

Customers can pay by simply touching their phone to the POS machine instead of taking out their card to swipe.

This new solution is being beta tested with 5,000 customers from September 13 to September 28 and will be officially applied nationwide from September 29.

In the future, Samsung Vina and NAPAS will continue to expand cooperation with other banks and international card issuers such as VISA and MasterCard to expand service coverage to the entire market.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Minh - Deputy General Director of NAPAS said that payment via this application can be compatible with most POS machines of banks without banks having to adjust the system or upgrade the POS machine.

Currently, the Vietnamese electronic payment market is considered to have great potential. According to the Vietnam Bank Card Association, as of December 31, 2016, the entire market had 53 organizations participating in card issuance, with a total number of cards issued reaching more than 104 million cards of all types.

It is forecasted that electronic payments in general in Vietnam will develop strongly in the coming time due to the high proportion of young population, the increasing rate of smartphone usage, along with the constantly improving technology infrastructure serving the financial sector. In particular, the coverage of the POS network is also very favorable.

“The POS network is growing rapidly. The transaction value through POS is also growing at a high rate, around 50% per year. However, this growth rate is still not commensurate with the potential it should have compared to the current payment infrastructure conditions in Vietnam. The habit of using cash is still strong,” Mr. Minh assessed.

According to VNE