More than 5,000 ATM (auto telling machine) card holders of six commercial banks, VietinBank, Vietcombank, BIDV (the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam), Sacombank, Shinhan Vietnam Bank and AB Bank have begun trying Samsung Pay, a new payment solution. 

When paying for goods, customers put their phones next to POS without touching it and the transactions will be completed.

In early July, another type of non-touch payment was launched by Sacombank and applied to international card holders. This was the first commercial bank using the payment method in Vietnam. The payment technology – Visa payWave – is being used following cooperation between the bank and Visa signed earlier this year.

Non-touch electronic payment methods in Vietnam, including contactless cards or payment by phone scanning, are being applied widely in large cities.

The new-generation card, which allows users to make payment for goods just by waving in front of POS, is equipped with a chip containing a tiny antenna which transmits information to and from a card reader. 

The big advantage of the payment solution is that payers don’t need to sign and enter PIN codes if their transactions have value of less than VND1 million.  

Large retail chains in Vietnam including Big C, Citimart and Nguyen Kim and 1,000 POS accept this payment method, using payWave technology. 

VietinBank has announced that it will launch the contactless cards using wave-to-pay technology which will replace cards which users have to insert into chip-reading slot.

Sean Preson, Visa director in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, said that contactless payment methods remain unfamiliar in Vietnam (one bank has applied and one bank is going to apply), but they will become popular in as all banks will issue this kind of card.

The recent surveys conducted by Visa in cooperation with YouGov and Toluna found that Vietnamese are ‘open’ to new payment methods. Nine out of 10 surveyed consumers said they were willing to try the new payment method, while 80 percent said they may use smartphones when making payments. 

Meanwhile, 83 percent said they would choose contactless payments instead of cash. 

Another report showed that electronic payment continues to be a big choice of Vietnamese consumers. By the end of June, electronic payments had increased by 38 percent over the same period last year.

The transactions via Visa credit and debit cards had increased by 49 percent and 34 percent, respectively, while the total transaction value had increased by 35 percent.

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