A customer pays at a coffee shop using a QR code. (Photo: VNS)The vendor Nguyen Thuy Hang, 44, said: “I allow all payment ofcash, transfer or scanning QR code.”
Hang told Vietnam News: “Ithelps me a lot in collecting small money. Sometimes, customers don’t have smallmoney, and I also don’t have enough money to return their big cash. I oftentell them to pay next time, but both of us forget about it, and I lose money asa result.”
“Now, I select from 1,000 VND with the code. I just print it onthe coffee box, and customers just need to scan it easily. They don’t need toask my bank account or anything.”
Meanwhile, Hoang Duong, the payer, said: “I am so lucky, my wifehelped me install an e-wallet recently. If not, I would need to go to anotherplace to change my money. That's so inconvenient as it is hot.”
Hang has sold tea and juice on the small corner of the street formore than four years. Over the past two years, with the pandemic, she andothers have been encouraged to embrace cashless payment solutions.
Hang started a bank account, using Momo e-wallet and a QR code totake the smallest bills of customers.
In the past, she often had to prepare small change to return tocustomers, and small denominations are rare, such as 1,000 VND or 2,000 VND,and are always a headache to find.
“Sometimes customers have only 500,000 VND paper and only buy a 3,000VND cup of tea. With two of them like that at the same time, I could not dealwith it. And I don’t want to tell them to go to other places for small money,but I have to,” she said.
Nguyen Minh Nguyet, in Ngoc Ha, said: “At least three times I wasthinking 500,000 VND was 20,000 VND, so I prefer scanning a QR code or using acard to pay.”
Nguyet said as most of her small items were paid non-cash via abank account before, and it takes time and money to take cash from the ATM.Nguyet now enjoys most of her cashless purchases such as meat, vegetables,bread, and milk at her local market with a QR code.
“Luckily, installing such a thing is easy and free for all shopowners, so they follow each other to have the code. They only need to paste thecode at a visible area and check their phone after customers finish the paymentand all is done.”
According to a professional report, by 2022, 85% of consumersin the country will love and use this payment method more often than two yearsago.
Ngo Anh Tuan, director of VNPAY-QR, told local media: “Many icedtea stalls in the capital and HCM City also accept QR payments.”
Tuan said digital payment was considered strange and impossiblefor most small retailers at first but COVID made them change their minds. Afterthe pandemic, people witnessed a significant increase in the demand forcashless payments, said the director.
Recently, SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh, said that after morethan two years, the National Comprehensive Financial Strategy to 2025 wasissued, and ministries and sectors have actively implemented six tasks andsolutions of the strategy.
According to the SBV, the legal framework for achieving financialinclusion goals is constantly improving. So far ministries and branches havedeveloped and submitted to competent authorities to promulgate one law, sixdecrees, and five decisions and directly promulgated many circulars guidingcreating an increasingly complete legal framework set for the realisation offinancial inclusion goals.
To date, supply organisations and distribution channels havecontinued to be developed. Accordingly, the system of organisations providingfinancial products and services in the market has grown quite diversely in mostprovinces and cities across the country.
By the end of 2021, the value of payments via the Internet willincrease by 48.76%, payments via mobile phone will increase by 87.5%, QR codeswill increase by 125.5% and domestic payments via bank card will increase by21.16% over the same period in 2020. Cash is no longer king.
Anh said financial infrastructure continued to improve andincrease efficiency, adding the SBV would invest and upgrade critical paymentsystems such as the interbank electronic payment system; the design forclearing and switching financial transactions; and the automated clearing andsettlement system for retail payment transactions that officially operated fromJuly 2020./.
VNA
