Thanks to convenience, e-wallets have become increasingly popular among Vietnamese. MoMo alone has attracted 10 million users. 

Hanh, an office worker in district 2, HCM City, said he had used e-wallets linked with bank cards to pay phone scratch cards, electricity and water bills, and to do shopping.

However, he gave up after hearing about a series of security problems. He checked the transaction procedures required by e-wallets and found that they were not safe enough.

“The first time when I linked Vietcombank ATM (auto telling machine) card with MoMo, I had to undergo different steps to check the account owner, number of card and OTP. However, when I transferred money from my ATM card to the e-wallet, the procedures were very simple, with no OTP,” he said.

When he transferred VND5 million from ATM card to the e-wallet, he had to input the password of MoMo, but did not have to undergo any confirming steps.

“What will happen if I lose my mobile phone, or my MoMo account is stolen? Will I lose all the money?” he said.

The users of Zalo Pay and Airpay e-wallets have the same concern.

Nga, who has an Eximbank ATM card, said after fulfilling the steps of verifying account, entering card number and OTP, her ATM account and Zalo Pay automatically linked. Later, when she transferred money from ATM card to Zalo Pay, she only had to declare the amount of money and the e-wallet’s password.

The procedures were even simpler for credit card users. They link the cards with e-wallets to shop and make payments for products and services, and do not have to implement security steps as they have to when making online payments, or through POS.

A representative of M_Service JSC, the owner of MoMo wallet, sad to successfully link a card and e-wallets, users must declare information for e-wallets and banks to verify. The phone number registered with MoMo by clients must match the phone number registered with the bank.

MoMo doesn’t require confirmation with OTP for subsequent transactions in order to make it more convenient to clients.

A representative of Sacombank confirmed that OTP is not required for transactions with small value. However, for Sacombank Pay app, OTP will be required for transactions with value of VND5 million and more.