If the mobile payment platform is licensed for trial in 2019, Vietnam will be the 91st country in the world to provide Mobile Money services, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said at the workshop titled "Electronic money on mobile subscribers to promote financial inclusion" in Hanoi on May 23.Hung said that by the end of 2018, 90 countries in the world were accepting Mobile Money, with nearly 900 million users, the daily transaction volume totaling US$1.3 billion, and annual growth rate of 20%. In many countries, the percentage of people using Mobile Money already tops 50%.
Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung makes speech at the event. Photo: Trong Dat
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If Mobile Money is deployed, people will be able to transfer money, pay or receive money through their cellphone account. Mobile Money allows people to deposit money into a network even without a bank account. People can also use money in their cellphone account to send to each other or buy goods with small value, Hung said.
He also stressed that there will be many legal issues to be settled for Mobile Money, as well as challenges and risks, but Mobile Money provides much more benefits.
Mobile Money is e-commerce, entrepreneurship and innovation
According to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, people mention a lot about e-commerce, entrepreneurship and innovation, but they forget mentioning one of the most important foundations which is payment tool.
"For a service that is popular with 100% of people, first of all, payment platform must access 100% of the people. There is no better way to do this than Mobile Money. In Vietnam, the proportion of people using credit cards is low, but the mobile subscriber density is over 100% for many years,” Hung said.
Mobile Money is e-commerce, entrepreneurship and innovation. Photo: GettyImages
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Mobile Money’s benefits in developing Vietnam's digital economy
In Vietnam, many people are excluded from orthodox financial systems. They are poor people in rural or remote areas.
Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that Mobile Money will help people access (paid) services with life-changing nature on the Internet platform such as healthcare, education, finance, employment and social security.
In developing countries, about 15% of adults earn revenues from selling agricultural products. However, most of them make transactions cash. This form of payment is inconvenient, inefficient and contains many risks. Farmers cannot sell their products to a remote customer if they only buy and sell in cash.
Mobile Money can help dwellers buy a bunch of banana from a specific person in a garden and even under the shade of the tree. Therefore, farmers can also sell agricultural products at high prices. That's how the mobile payment platform penetrates into rural market and digitizes agricultural value chain.
Not only that, thanks to Mobile Money, there will appear more digital businesses and technology startups. With a simple and easy way of trading, it will not be too surprising if Mobile Money becomes the most popular payment method and contributes to creating a boom for Vietnamese startups.
Therefore, although there are still many legal issues that need to be settled, Minister Hung believes that Vietnamese people will soon see the launching for Mobile Money in 2019.
