Registering to use Mobile Money in early 2022, Ninh Thi Hoa from NamDinh found the service convenient. “I can go shopping without having to bring cash. It’s easy to pay for everything with Mobile Money, from meat to bags of rice,” she said.

However, she noted that there are still limitations. She can only transfer money from her account to other Mobile Money accounts of the same mobile network. There are four members in her family who use the mobile networks Viettel and VinaPhone, and children cannot transfer money from their VinaPhone accounts to her Viettel account.

That is why she can only buy goods from sellers who use the same mobile network – Viettel. Every time when she wants to deposit or withdraw money, she has to go to the business point located three kilometers from her house.

She said that in late September, Mobile Money began connecting with bank accounts, which will allow transfer of money from her bank account to Mobile Money account, and vice versa. 

From now on, she will not have to go to the business point to deposit money in a Mobile Money account as she now can transfer money from a bank account to her Mobile Money account. 

Napas (the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam) has announced connections with two mobile networks - Viettel and Vinaphone – for transfer services between Mobile Money accounts and payment accounts at banks.

The service allows clients who have Mobile Money accounts at Viettel and VinaPhone to make direct transactions with more than millions of bank accounts and vice versa. 

Money transfers and receipts can be done with VietQR scanning, thus making transactions go quickly, safely and correctly, without having to enter the information about recipients’ accounts.

Pham Tien Dung, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), said the connection removes the boundary between two digital financial services, helping people with bank accounts easily transact with people with Mobile Money accounts.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), after one year of trial deployment, 2.2 million people by August had registered to use Mobile Money, including 1.5 million people in rural, mountainous and remote areas, islands and border areas.

However, the figure is small compared with the total 120 million mobile phone subscribers.

Pham Van Thanh, a herbal doctor in Lao Cai, complained about the transaction value limit of VND10 million, saying that his account can be used for transactions for only about 10 days a month because of the limit.

Tran Chung