MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corp Launches “VNPT Pay” Mobile Money Service

Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corporation (VNPT) recently won approval from the State Bank of Vietnam to pilot a nationwide mobile money service. The service, VNPT Pay, allows customers to use mobile phones to deposit money to and withdraw money from the service, pay bills, and transfer funds on a peer-to-peer basis.

In January 2021, the State Bank of Vietnam gave preliminary approval for VNPT and two other organizations – MobiFone Telecommunications Corporation and Viettel Digital Service Corporation – to provide mobile money services. Since then, MobiFone also released a mobile money service.

Pham Trung Kien, the CEO of Viettel Digital, argued, “Some studies estimate that in Vietnam only about 30 percent of the adult population have a bank account, and when we create a habit of using electronic payments, the remaining 70 percent will be customers of banks. Thus, mobile money not only competes but also promotes the use of bank accounts…”.

Founded in 2006, government-owned VNPT is Vietnam’s national post office and also serves as a telecommunications provider. VNPT last reported financial data for 2017, at which time it valued its total assets at VND 8.23 trillion (USD 357 million) with return on assets (ROA) of 13.47. MobiFone was founded in 1993 under the name Mobile Information Company and took on its current name in 2014. As of 2020, MobiFone reported VND 301 billion (USD 13 million) in total assets and return on average assets (ROAA) of 10.42. Viettel Digital Service is a telecommunications company based in Vietnam that provides digital finance and e-commerce services to 110 million customers. As of 2020, Viettel has VND 59 trillion (USD 2.56 billion) in total assets and ROAA of 0.93.

By Zachary DeLuca, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

VNPT press release
https://vnpt.com.vn/gioi-thieu/tin-tuc/mobile-money-tien-loi-cho-nguoi-dung.html

Article on mobile money services license approval
https://english.mic.gov.vn/Pages/TinTuc/150868/State-Bank-grants-Mobile-Money-license-to-Viettel.html

MobiFone homepage
https://www.mobifone.vn/

Viettel Digital homepage
https://digital.viettel.vn/

State Bank of Vietnam homepage
https://www.sbv.gov.vn/

VNPT homepage
https://vnpt.com.vn/

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