Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday held a press conference to announce the second edition of ‘Cashless Day,’ an initiative to promote non-cash payment in the Southeast Asian country.

The Communications Department under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS), and the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) also coordinated the organization of the event.

‘Cashless Day’ was first suggested by Tuoi Tre Editor-in-Chief Le The Chu in January 2019, with June 16 being the designated date.

The event was meant to solicit ideas and suggestions from SBV officials, economic experts, financial specialists, and representatives from several local commercial banks on what can be done to reduce the use of cash in the country.

Speaking at Tuesday’s press meeting, Tuoi Tre Deputy Editor-in-Chief Do Van Dung remarked on changes in people’s payment behavior in the last year.

Dung said that the changes can be observed in microeconomic activities, such as the availability of cashless payment options at markets and supermarkets, and in the bigger picture reflected in the overall growth of cashless payment in Vietnam.

According to SBV’s latest data, there are currently about 88.5 million bank accounts active in Vietnam.

Daily transactions processed by SBV’s system are valued at US$17 billion.

By the end of 2019, payments made via the Internet had grown 64 percent in quantity and 37 percent in value, while those performed through mobile phones had risen 198 percent and 210 percent in quantity and value, respectively, against 2018.

Nguyen Dang Hung, deputy general director of NAPAS, said that the institution handles nearly 2.8 million cashless transactions, worth some $1 billion, daily.

The growth of non-cash payment is attributed to the fact that more services have accepted payments made via NAPAS, while fee cuts — which SBV estimates to reach about VND1 trillion ($43 million) by the end of 2020 — also play a role.

During her remarks at Tuesday’s meeting, Le Thi Thuy Sen, head of SBV’s communications department, said Cashless Day is an important event to realize a national financial strategy, which targets, among others, improvement in public access to banking products and services.

For the same purpose, NAPAS and Vietnamese lender VietBank on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding on the research and application of the former’s domestic chip cards in transport payment, which is expected to be implemented by the end of this year.

“The accessibility of bank cards will be an important factor to encourage people to use public transport, contributing to the construction of smart, modern cities,” NAPAS’ Hung said.

In its second year, Cashless Day 2020 will offer several incentives and feature a series of events, including support for Vietnamese farm produce, a virtual run, and seminars on cashless payment, according to Tran Xuan Toan, a member of the editorial board at Tuoi Tre.

Particularly, the first 100 small merchants to register for the ‘Cashless Small Business’ program at khongtienmat2020.tuoitre.vn will be given an mPOS card swipe machine provided by NextPay Holdings and Visa Inc.

The ‘Cashless Small Business’ program also offers a 50-percent discount on mPOS devices and a one-year free license to use business management software Nextshop, and a 70-percent discount for small businesses who subscribe to Nextshop’s three-year service package.

Merchants at the An Dong Plaza shopping center in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City can also encourage customers to make cashless payments through a 20-percent cashback program.

Meanwhile, a program to promote consumption of domestically grown agricultural products hurt by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will also be carried out under a joint effort by Vietnamese mobile wallet app MoMo, Tuoi Tre, and leading retailer Saigon Co.op.

Accordingly, users will be able to purchase Vietnamese agricultural products via the MoMo app from June 10 to 30 this year.

The program will be piloted in Ho Chi Minh City with the first available produce being lychee and rice.

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