Sean Preston, Visa country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos talks about consumption in Vietnam (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) - Visa Vietnam announced at the end of March that its mVisa, a quick response (QR) code-based payment service, will soon be expanded to merchants and consumers in 10 countries, including Vietnam.
mVisa is a mobile payment solution that brings the benefits of easy and secure digital commerce to financial institutions, merchants and consumers, helping accelerate global migration from cash to electric payments.
The new payment service will also help merchants reduce their investments in expensive point-of-sale infrastructure.
Sean Preston, Visa country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, announced that his company was working with banks and merchants so that the service could come out late this year.
On the same day, Visa announced its 2016 Consumer Payment Attitudes Study, which said that consumers in Vietnam were increasingly leaving their cash at home, with 62 percent preferring to use electronic payments.
“When asked why they are carrying less cash the majority of consumers said this was because of greater usage of cards and safety concern of carrying cash,” the study said.
Visa said that its findings come on the back of an announcement that the Vietnamese Government plans to make transactions almost totally electronic by 2020.
The company’s survey also showed that 83 percent of respondents said they shopped online at least once a month, an increase of 11 percent over 2015.
It also uncovered positive attitudes towards some of the less frequently discussed aspects of electronic payments.
For instance, 77 percent of Vietnamese respondents had a favourable view of services that use automated payments to eliminate the physical process of paying, such as taxi apps.
In addition, 72 percent said that they were comfortable with the use of biometrics such as fingerprints and face recognition for payment authentication.
The survey, conducted in October last year, was an online study of payment behavior and trends across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Respondents were people above the age of 18 with a monthly personal income of 5 million VND and above.-VNA
