The National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) has become the President of the Asian Payment Network (APN) for 2020 at the recent 15th annual meeting of the network in Hanoi.

Payment with NAPAS card (Photo: vietnamfinance.vn)

Payment organisations from 11 member nations of APN agreed to jointly build retail payment infrastructure for countries in the region.

The event focused on discussing ways to promote the transfer of bilateral connection to that through APN Hub, boost the implementation of Cross Border Fund Transfer – CBFT, and develop Cross Border QR and initiatives to support fintech and startup firms.

Since joining the APN in 2010, the NAPAS has implemented successfully connections with four APN payment organisations namely KFTC (the Republic of Korea), PayNet (Malaysia), ITMX (Thailand) and UnionPay (China).

These connections provide Vietnamese cardholders with practical utilities through allowing customers to perform transactions on ATM/POS network in APN member countries and vice versa.

They also contribute to the development of the banking sector and facilitate the development of tourism and services.

Established in 2006, the APN now has 12 payment organisations from 11 countries, namely PayNet (Malaysia), NETS (Singapore), KFTC (the Republic of Korea), ITMX (Thailand), Artajasa and Rintis (Indonesia), Bancnet (the Philippines), NAPAS (Vietnam), NTT Data (Japan), UPI (China), Cuscal (Australia), and Paymark (New Zealand).

The goal of APN is to unify technical and professional standards for participating members, thus strengthening connectivity and business cooperation to develop card payments in the region, while enhancing position and competitiveness of regional member organizations.