The three-day 2024 Cashless Day Festival in Ho Chi Minh City, which wrapped up on Sunday night, served nearly 100,000 visitors and presented a wide array of online payment technologies and services, digital payment trends, and interesting mini games.

The event, held on Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in District 1, also treated fest-goers to a vibrant and joyful atmosphere and various special gifts.

With the theme ‘Promoting the Development of Safe Cashless Payments,' the 2024 Cashless Day Festival was among a series of events supporting the 2024 Cashless Day (June 16), gathering commercial banks, ecommerce companies, intermediary payment service providers, businesses majoring in fashion, food, and consumer products, and utility firms.

The initiative was first launched by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in 2019 in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade and the Payment Department of the State Bank of Vietnam.

Tran Xuan Toan, deputy editor-in-chief of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper and head of the organization board of the festival, delivers his speech at the closing ceremony on June 16, 2024. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Speaking at a closing ceremony of the festival, Tran Xuan Toan, deputy editor-in-chief of Tuoi Tre and head of the organization board, said that the Cashless Day Festival allowed residents to access and explore new payment methods and learn more about benefits from non-cash payments.

The annual event is meant to help residents shift to digital payments.

Among nearly 100,000 fest-goers, some 60,000 experienced payment technologies and services provided by participating booths during the event, which kicked off on Friday last week.

Over 50,000 sets of gifts were offered to customers at the festival, while more than 20,000 accounts for cashless payments were registered.

Crowds of visitors join the 2024 Cashless Day Festival held on Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

As of 5:00 pm on Sunday last week, the festival had got over 78 million views on social media platform TikTok.

Some 300 articles, audios and videos about a seminar titled ‘Enhance cashless payment safety,’ and the festival, were published over the past three days.

The festival not only spread a message of calling on residents to make non-cash payments, but also gave visitors a place to experience new payment trends, said Toan.

Through the event, several participating banks and financial institutions provided fest-goers with knowledge about safe cashless payment methods and cybersecurity.

Besides, utility firms introduced residents to their digital public services and the convenience of non-cash payments.

The sixth Cashless Day Festival drew great attention from the public and got support from several partners in a bid to spread a modern payment trend.

A representative of Vietcombank said that over 5,000 visitors took part in all activities offered at the bank’s booth during the three-day event.

The festival acted as a link between residents and cashless payment service providers, the representative said, adding that this year’s event ran smoothly, professionally, and successfully.

The 2024 event had a larger scale than the previous editions, said a representative of Techcombank, which has accompanied the festival for six years. 

Focusing on cybersecurity and cashless payment safety, the sixth version of the festival satisfied customers’ curiosity, underlined the Techcombank representative.

Meanwhile, JCB, Japan's international payment brand, reported impressive figures after the festival.

Over 7,000 customers explored JCB’s services and payment activities at its booth during the festival, while JCB also handed over thousands of gifts to them in return.

From Friday to Sunday last week, multiple major banks, credit institutions and enterprises such as Vietcombank, Viettel Money, HDBank, Techcombank, Saigon Co.op, ACB, VISA, Mastercard, BIDV, TPBank, MoMo, JCB, Nam A Bank, SHB, Agribank, Eximbank, VPBank, and Cake by VPBank brought to the festival a slew of technology solutions and organized numerous captivating programs to make it easier for customers to access new and safe payment methods.

Moreover, lots of live streams were held during the festival to sell goods and introduce digital services on Sunday last week.

Fest-goers crowd Tuoi Tre’s booth at the festival. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

At the NAPAS booth, customers conduct cashless payments to buy drinks. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

The last night of the 2024 Cashless Day Festival in Ho Chi Minh City lures a large number of visitors. Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

Aside from exploring new payment methods, festival-goers enjoyed music performances featuring popular Vietnamese singers including Phuong Vy, Luu Huong Giang, Ricky Star, Trong Hieu, and Hoang Yen Chibi between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm during the three-day festival.

Addressing the closing ceremony, Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade, said that 2025 would be a special year with a series of key events and new milestones.

Next year’s cashless day festival is expected to offer visitors more useful activities and to be held on a larger scale.

The municipal department was assigned to map out some plans to speed up the shift to cashless payments, Phuong stated.

Also, he underlined that the Shopping Season 2024 promotion program was rolled out on Saturday last week.

Some 6,000 businesspeople have registered to join the program, which was scheduled to run until mid-September.

A variety of discounts and gifts are on offer during the three-month event in the city.

Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade, delivers his speech at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Cashless Day Festival on June 16, 2024. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives a thank-you letter to a representative of Vietcombank. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives a thank-you letter to a representative of TPBank. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives a thank-you letter to a representative of HDBank. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives a thank-you letter to a representative of ACB. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Nam A Bank, Techcombank and Vietcombank win prizes for ‘Booths with fascinating activities.’ Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

ONEFIN, NAPAS and Vietel Money secure prizes for ‘Booths with impressive designs.’ Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives flowers to the representatives of some enterprises in association with the festival. Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives flowers to the representatives of some enterprises in association with the festival. Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

The organization board gives flowers to the representatives of some enterprises in association with the festival. Photo: Phuong Quyen / Tuoi Tre

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