E-wallet war heats up in Vietnam as banks join fray

Four more banks received clearance to operate e-wallet businesses.

In another sign of deepening competition in the country's mobile wallet segment, four more banks namely HDBank, PVcomBank, ACB, SeABank and VIB have received approval from the Vietnamese central bank to operate their e-wallet business

Transactions via e-wallets in Vietnam have ballooned from mere millions in 2009 to $2.29b (VND53.11t) in 2016 in line with the government directive to clamp down on cash and reduce the share of cash to below 10% of all transactions by 2020.

This is thanks to a growing number of players not limited to banks have been steadily carving their mark into the mobile wallet scene, with a total of 27 non-bank institutions receiving clearance to operate e-wallet services as of end-August. These include MoMo, Bankplus, Vi Viet, VTC Pay, WePay, Vimo, Ngân Lượng and Payoo.

Also read: Here's why foreign bank ownership cap is a boon for Vietnamese fintech

Most of these institutions are dominated by foreign service providers. South Korea’s UTC Investment holds a 65% stake in VNPT Epay, NTT Data holds 64% of Payoo, Hong Kong’s Champion Crest has 51% of Amigo Technologies JSC, Thailand’s True Money owns 90% of 1Pay and MOL Accessportal holds 50% of Ngân Lượng.

Photo from TomW712 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,