Viettel, VinaPhone dial in on e-payment service

Several local mobile service providers, including Viettel and VinaPhone, are now switching to the e-payment segment in the context that their revenues from basic mobile services such as call, text and value added services have declined. Report by the Saigon Times Daily.
Several local mobile service providers, including Viettel andVinaPhone, are now switching to the e-payment segment in the contextthat their revenues from basic mobile services such as call, text andvalue added services have declined. Report by the Saigon Times Daily.

Nguyen Duc Hung, in charge of sales and marketing ofthe value added service centre of VinaPhone, said basic services likephone and text were already saturated and that charges of these serviceswere falling due to the fierce competition from free over-the-top (OTT)services.

Because of this, telecom enterprisesnow are competing with one another in terms of the value-added serviceand payment service, Hung said.

“Basic and valueadded services have been tapped thoroughly by telecom companies whileonly payment is the final segment that is not yet utilised at present.This is the segment bringing huge revenue.”

Vietteland VinaPhone are two mobile service operators joining the e-paymentsector actively while MobiFone is also making a plan to enter this area.

In particular, Viettel has launched the BankPlusservice allowing customers to make payments for water and electricitybills, air ticket purchases and money transfers via mobile phones. Theservice now is connected among 16 local banks such as Vietcombank,Vietinbank, BIDV and Sacombank, with users set to pay 11,000 VND (0.55USD) per month to maintain the service.

Accounttransfers within the same bank costs a minimum 3,000 VND for onetransaction while account transfers among different banks is charged10,000 VND a time and the transaction check fee is set at 500 VND.However, certain banks offer free money transfers internally and onlycharge monthly service maintenance fees.

Pham TrungKien, director of the e-commerce center of Viettel, informed that theBankPlus service of his firm had already connected 16 banks andattracted 2.4 million Viettel subscribers. Notably, over 1.5 millionsubscribers perform monthly transactions worth some 5 million VND amonth each, Kien remarked.

In the meantime,VinaPhone with the e-purse model Momo supports customers via paymentsfor air tickets and game card purchases and other digital contents. Atthe same time, customers are also able to transfer money through thee-purse model with a maximum amount of 5 million VND a day. The servicenow is being used by 700,000 VinaPhone subscribers.

Besides the basic payment, Viettel and VinaPhone said they were lookingto connect with e-commerce websites as intermediate payment tools.According to Hung, VinaPhone is talking with several lenders over thepayment channel connection besides cooperating with e-commerce websitesto integrate the e-purse Momo as an online payment portal.

Similarly, Viettel is working with local e-commerce websites to launchits payment service in the e-commerce industry next year.-VNA

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