How will mobile money affect e-wallets?

Non-cash payment activities have developed strongly in recent years with many payment services such as digital banks and e-wallets.
How will mobile money affect e-wallets? ảnh 1Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Non-cash paymentactivities have developed strongly in recent years with many payment servicessuch as digital banks and e-wallets.

A new trend of developing payment services onmobile devices, called mobile money, is also being implemented.

Many economists have said that competitionbetween e-wallets and mobile money might not happen as each payment method hasdifferent goals and market share.

Economist Can Van Luc said customers of eachpayment method were quite different.

Mobile money will mainly focus on those whoalready have phone numbers. The customers of this payment method are everywhereincluding in rural, urban, remote and mountainous areas.

Mobile money and e-wallets have the samepurpose of creating a community which uses cashless payment.

However, mobile money helps people usingmobile accounts to transfer money and pay goods with small value quickly, soits payments have limited value compared to e-wallets.

On the flipside, economist Nguyen Tri Hieuthinks mobile money will soon compete with e-wallets.

Mobile money was a form similar to e-wallets,he said. With mobile money, people can open an account on a mobilephone for non-cash payment without bank accounts.

The economist assessed that mobile moneywould be especially helpful in remote areas, where people did not have bankaccounts.

The Payment Department under the State Bankof Vietnam (SBV) said the mobile money pilot project was being built with anestimated payment limit of 10 million VND per month (430 USD) for an identifiedaccount.

Meanwhile, in accordance with Circular23/2019/TT-NHNN, the total limit of transactions via a personal e-wallet of onecustomer was up to 100 million VND per month.

Statistics of the department also showedpayments via mobile phone channels including mobile banking and e-wallets as ofthe end of April increased by 189 percent in volume and 166.1 percent in valuecompared to the same period last year.

By the end of 2018, as many as 90countries were accepting mobile money with up to 900 million users. 

The transaction value reached 1.3 billion USDa day with an annual growth rate of 20 percent.

In Asia, the growth rate was 31 percent.In many countries, half of the population uses mobile money.

In Vietnam, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucrecently approved the mobile money pilot project, allowing the use oftelecommunication accounts to pay for small-value goods and services.

The State Bank of Vietnam is also seekingcomments for a draft decree regulating non-cash payments whichwould allow mobile money users not to link with bank accounts but beable to top-up or withdraw cash directly at telecommunication stores.

Telecommunication businesses such as Viettel,MobiFone and VNPT have said they were ready to prepare all necessary conditionsto provide mobile money services as soon as it was licensed./.
VNA

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