Vietnam - Only 20pct of Vietnamese people have bank accounts

Currently, only about 20 percent of Vietnamese people have bank accounts, local newspaper VnEconomy quoted Bui Quang Tien, Head of Settlement Systems Department under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) as saying at a press briefing in Hanoi on March 19 about a banking conference and expo (Banking Vietnam 2012), scheduled to take place in Hanoi on May 25-26.

According to Tien, so far, Vietnam has only about 14 percent of non-cash payment means, 42 million cards being issued, including 94 percent of local cards and 6 percent of international cards, 13,500 ATM machines and over 50,000 e-wallets being used in Vietnam.

Director Bui Quang Tien also said that by the end of December 2011, prime minister has approved a project to promote non-cash payment in Vietnam in 2011-2015 period to diversify services, promote application of electronic payment technology and focus on developing non-cash payments to better meet the needs of the economy.

Accordingly, the project specified objectives to be achieved by the end of 2015 with the ratio of cash payment at less than 11 percent, and increasing the number of people accessing the payment services, increasing the number of people having bank accounts to 35-40 percent. By 2015, the market will have about 250,000 points of sale (POS) to be installed with a volume of over 200 million transactions/ year.

In 2006, the domestic market had only 5 million cards of various types, 3,000 ATMs, and around 11,000 points of sale (POS). By the end of last year, the number of bank cards rose drastically to 42 million with 13,500 ATM booths, over 50,000 e-wallets and nearly 7,000 POS.

The upcoming Banking Vietnam 2012 event has theme "Information Technology towards Effective Banking Governance and High Quality Banking Services". Future strategic planning for the banking sector and new trends in banking technology will be discussed at the expo, as well as non-cash payments, bank governance, risk management, and security solutions for better banking services.

The event is being jointly held by the SBV Information Technology Department and the International Data Group (IDG).

VietBiz24

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