At a recent meeting summarising information and communication activities in the first half of this year and presenting orientations and tasks for the second half, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) noted that by end of June, Vietnam had a total 1.72 million active Mobile Money accounts, a five-fold increase compared to January.

Nevertheless, reaching the target of all subscribers having Mobile Money accounts in 2022 as set by the MIC early this year is proving to be an arduous task.

To reach this goal, concerted efforts are required from both relevant enterprises and the government.

At the meeting, Ngo Dien Hy, deputy general director at the state-leading telco VNPT, proposed a policy revision after the six-month pilot application of the Mobile Money service.

Accordingly, Hy proposed the current transaction limit be loosened as with about 40 per cent of Mobile Money service users living in urban areas, the current transaction limit of VND10 million ($430) for essential needs per month appears insufficient.

By the end of June, the number of Mobile Money accounts rose five-fold compared to January

Another issue is with the service connection. Relevant management agencies have been asked to greenlight Mobile Money service connections between existing telcos, as well as approve cross-payment services between different payment intermediaries, allowing Money Money service providers to receive payments from merchants using other payment intermediaries.

“These factors are the key to wooing people into using Mobile Money, as in order to change their payment habits, it is important to show people the apparent benefits of the service,” said Hy.

Truong Quang Viet, deputy CEO of Viettel Digital proposed that the government should give more support to underprivileged people in rural and remote areas through grant disbursements or other funding provisions.

Viet also proposed allowing telcos to be connected and able to trace information from the national population database to facilitate the electronic authentication and verification process.

“We would like the MIC to ask the government to evaluate pilot stage results and consider loosening several regulations such as those on transaction limits and the scope of units allowed to provide Mobile Money service. This would help our service traders to reach the goal of popularising cashless payments in Vietnam,” said Viet.

The National Payment Corporation of Vietnam is set to finalise connections between the bank account and Mobile Money account of the first telco in the third quarter of this year.

Currently, among telcos, the military-run Viettel takes the lead with more than 1 million Mobile Money accounts.

To boost user numbers, Viettel has introduced the Market 4.0 cashless-market model in 63 localities across the country, operating a total of 122 markets with over 12,000 points of service developed to feed operations.

The state-leading telco VNPT accommodates about 500,000 Mobile Money subscribers with more than 10,000 Mobile Money points of service throughout the country.

VNPT statistics show that nearly 90 per cent of Mobile Money transactions are focused on essential service payments including water and power bills, telecom charges, and daily consumption, as well as payments for public administrative services.

People in rural, remote, border, and island areas account for 67 per cent of the total number of Mobile Money service users. The first half of this year saw more than 7,830 associated service points coming into operation, with 3,757 points located in these more remote areas.

The number of transactions using the Mobile Money service has now reached eight million and they were valued at $5.4 million.