Visa supports Cashless Day 2024, accelerating Vietnam's digital payments revolution

Visa is sponsoring the sixth Cashless Day celebrations, organised by the State Bank of Vietnam and Tuoi Tre newspaper. This year's campaign seeks to engage consumers and businesses with exciting activities and special offers, designed to promote digital payments and expedite Vietnam's transition to a cashless society.

Dung Dang, Visa country manager for Vietnam and Laos, said, "Digital payments are shaping the future of the modern economy in Vietnam, with positive benefits for consumers and businesses. Visa is excited about our ongoing partnership with Cashless Day 2024, helping to enhance cashless transactions throughout the country. This initiative underscores our collective commitment to ensure digital payments benefit all stakeholders in Vietnam’s payment ecosystem, including consumers, merchants, and payment service providers."

Visa’s Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2023 highlights a significant rise in cashless payments, especially mobile wallet transactions, among Vietnam's merchants. A remarkable 79 per cent of food and dining establishments and 74 per cent of retailers and convenience stores now accept cashless payments.

Meanwhile, Visa’s Asia Pacific Small and Medium-sized Business (SMB) Research 2023 further indicates that over 40 per cent of SMBs in Vietnam now accept card payments, acknowledging their critical role in business operations. Two-thirds of these SMBs credit digital payments for positively impacting their revenue, with 80 per cent associating increased turnover with card transactions. This growing acceptance of digital payments has streamlined and secured consumer transactions.

To drive digital payment acceptance in Vietnam, Visa has partnered with Vietnam's leading e-wallet apps - MoMo, VNPAY, and ZaloPay - enabling Visa cardholders to make effortless QR payments. Visa has also introduced Apple Pay in Vietnam by partnering with major issuers in the country, offering a smooth and secure payment option. In the past 10 months, Visa has expanded point-of-sale marketing at SMB merchants and chain retailers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, boosting the visibility and acceptance of Visa on Apple Pay.

With the rapid rise of digital payments in Vietnam, there's been growing fraud and cybercrime. In 2023, Vietnamese businesses had the highest number of cyberthreat incidents in Southeast Asia, with 17.1 million cases. Hence, this year's Cashless Day theme is "Promoting safe and secure non-cash payments", aimed at raising awareness and fostering secure digital payment practices.

As part of its efforts to promote safety and security in digital payments, Visa has implemented a tokenisation strategy that replaces sensitive account information with a unique digital identifier. This security measure enhances security and allows consumers to manage their data-sharing preferences via their bank's apps. To date, Visa has issued over 1 billion tokens in the Asia-Pacific region.

In an additional effort to enhance digital security, Visa participated in the Vietnam Security Summit 2024, where Abhijit Bandyopadhyay, director of risk advisory practice for Visa Consulting & Analytics, shared insights on the use of AI in payment security technologies.

"In our digitally interconnected world, payment security is crucial. AI and tokenisation offer benefits beyond traditional methods, reducing cyber threats and enhancing protection. Visa continues to leverage these solutions to build a secure payment environment that customers and businesses can trust," Dang added.

Continuing its active engagement in Cashless Day, Visa is enhancing its support for consumers and businesses this year with a variety of exciting promotions encouraging cashless transactions on Gojek, Klook, Lazada, and UrBox.

A key highlight is the Visa-Starbucks strategic, long-term partnership aimed at encouraging cashless payments at Starbucks stores and supporting their transition to cashless transactions, and increasing the number of such stores by nearly 15 per cent this year.

This initiative is also part of Starbucks' plan to pilot the cashless payment experience in 2024. Starbucks is one of Visa’s top performers in contactless transactions, with rates reaching up to 93 per cent. Until the end of June 2024, customers can enjoy a "Free Upsize" on their favourite Starbucks drinks when paying contactless with Visa. Additionally, Starbucks will participate in Visa’s activation by supporting the Cashless Day campaign on June 29-30 at Lotte Mart, 54 Lieu Giai street, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi.

Other offers include up to 50 per cent off at premium restaurants, complimentary set menus at MICHELIN-starred restaurants, and half-price weekend stays at 5-star hotels. Notably, on June 27, to celebrate the achievements of the culinary community, Visa will partner with MICHELIN for the MICHELIN Guide Ceremony Hanoi | Ho Chi Minh City | Da Nang 2024. The event will be held at the InterContinental Saigon Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, promising exciting experiences for attendees.

As part of the Cashless Day festivities, Visa Commercial cardholders can earn triple bonus rewards when using their Visa Commercial cards to buy Vietnam Airlines flights online, and receive a 20 per cent discount on MISA AMIS software, a 40 per cent discount on the Xanh SM app, and discounts of up to 50 per cent on Be­­, Grab and via the Visa Dining platform.

At Visa’s Experience Booth on Nguyen Hue walking street (June 14-16), customers can participate in activities, including discounted Bliss ice cream for VND16,600 ($0.63) when using cashless payments and a photo booth for Instagrammable moments.

Visa has announced its support for Vietnam’s annual Cashless Day with a slew of exciting promotions. The initiative strengthens Visa’s commitment to promoting digital payment adoption and encouraging the digital transformation of Vietnam towards a cashless society.

The total value of cashless payments through Payoo experienced a sharp rise in the first half of 2024, up by 58 per cent over the same period last year.

Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, is celebrating Cashless Day in Vietnam by raising awareness to the benefits cashless payments provide businesses and consumers across the country.