Clients have shifted to use e-wallets

Nguyen Vu, 28, in Thu Duc district, HCMC, now makes payments for electricity, water, internet and phone service via MoMo e-wallet. He often goes to cafes to meet friends, and needs to bring only a mobile phone to make payment for his coffee.

Vu said as commercial banks all have raised fees of many services, he will use e-wallet more regularly.

“You can book cinema tickets, pay for air tickets, pay consumer loan interest monthly and insurance premiums,” he explained.

Pham Minh, an office worker in Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi, has made payments for the family’s bills via Vi Viet for one year. 

“No fee for transactions, no management fee and no account maintenance fee,” she said.

A banker admitted that the number of e-wallet users is on the rise because e-wallets now don’t charge fee on users. 

Meanwhile, e-wallets are competitive with banks’ Internet Banking and Mobile Banking.

 More importantly, it is easy to open an e-wallet accounts with just internet-connected smartphones. This allows people to make payments anywhere, especially in areas with no bank branches.

Billions of VND spent 

Nguyen Ba Diep, deputy chair of MoMo, said in 2018, MoMo is focusing on serving the tourism market worth $20 billion. 

Clients can book air, railway and coach tickets, as well as sign up for insurance policies on MoMo. They can also order domestic help, buy flowers, and pay by instalment to finance companies.

The e-wallet now has 6 million users and it hopes for 50 million by 2020.

LienViet Post Bank has signed an agreement with two Japanese companies on implementing the human resource management solution and paying salaries to workers via Vi Viet.

Workers, receiving their salaries via Vi Viet, can also use utilities of this wallet. After two years of presence in the market, Vi Viet now has 2.2 million users and 19,000 POS throughout the country.

There are over 20 e-wallets operating in the market, including well-known names such as Vi Viet, MoMo, Payoo, Moca, Baokim, MobiVi, Nganluong and Wepay.

However, e-wallets cannot earn big money at this time. The representative of an wallet said wallet investors ‘have to spend big money, but can only glean small change’. The revenue is still modest which still cannot cover investment capital. Most of the wallets are still taking a loss.

He admitted that clients don’t leave much money in e-wallets. They only use them to make payments for essential products and services, and withdraw cash after receiving money.

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Mai Chi