By 2025, 55% of the population in downtown districts, 30% in suburban ones in Da Nang are set to access online shopping and cashless payment methods, according to the city’s e-commerce development plans for the 2021 - 2025 period. Speeding up e-commerce, with a focus on the non-cash payment helps the city save time, shorten administrative procedures, reduce costs as well as ensure the transparency of revenues and spending. 

Bank cards are recommended to be used in online payments. Photo: Tieu Yen

Active deployment of non-cash payment supporting apps

Mr Nguyen Nho Tuy, Director of VNPT Da Nang Business Centre under Vinaphone affirmed the fact that non-cash payment is an urgent need, promoting digital transformation as well as building a smart city which features smart environment, education, residents, life, government, mobility and economy (including e-payment). In reality, amid the rapid speed of urbanization which imposes a great pressure on the traditional payment system, especially when dealing with large cash flows such as payment for public services, fines, fees and taxes, insurance, going cashless is a burgeoning trend for the time being.

“The digitization of payments helps currency processing be more efficient, economical, transparent, and increases the efficiency of financial supervision, and especially, minimises the potential risk of COVID-19 infections as well as some diseases transmitted via direct contact.

Joining hands with the community to build Da Nang into a smart city, VNPT provides highly –effective cashless payment services through cash collection apps or payment ones, and e-wallets. For instance, VNPT Pay e-wallet provides many noticeable features of depositing, withdrawing, transferring money between VNPT Pay accounts, paying bills, buying mobile card codes, connecting with a network of 50 banks with many attractive incentives.

In terms of smart education, the cashless payment of school fees among parents and schools has brought in great satisfaction thanks to its great convenience, thus helping reduce the workload facing the school’s financing clerks.

Since the 2019 – 2020 academic year, Ms Nguyen Thi Dieu Hien residing at Hai Chau District has gotten used to paying school fees for her children through the vnEdu Connect App because of its promptitude and convenience. This app also helps her make statistics and compare the expenses she has paid for each school year. Since 2019, The vnEdu Connect App has been applied at more than 100 schools across the city.

Meanwhile, in retail stores and service chains, VNPT builds the Merchants network along with Mobile Money, helping to speed up the cashless payment process.

The city's e-commerce development plan for the 2021-2025 period sets out many major goals. In detail, by 2025, over 50% of the city's population will no longer pay in cash, 100% of the purchases will have electronic invoices, 100% of the  enterprises make tax declarations, payment and refunds electronically, and 70% of the electricity, water, telecommunications and communication service providers will enter electronic contracts with its their customers.

To implement this roadmap, the Departments of Finance, the Department of Information and Communications, the Department of Industry and Trade, the Department of Planning and Investment, and the Market Management Department have to join hands to build a platform for identification and electronic authentication codes for residents and businesses.

At the same time, pecial heed has been paid to integrating and connecting household postal codes developed by Viet Nam Post Corporation, returning the results of administrative procedures by post and supporting the city's e-commerce, providing online public services at level 3 or above for administrative procedures on business and investment registration, and other procedures related to production and business activities, and supporting businesses to apply digital technology solutions.

In addition to promoting online shopping and payment, the e-commerce market is expected to improve the capacity and efficiency of the national management in inspection, ensuring fairness and transparency of financial obligations between e-commerce websites.

Proactively taking security measures

Cashless payment has grown rapidly through the frequency of using e-wallets, online transactions and QR codes. To increase competitiveness, contactless payment technology providers has enhanced security, such as paying with QR codes and encrypting cards.

For example, Sacombank's mobile apps integrate with fingerprint, face, and iris login solutions, allowing customers to obtain OTP codes themselves after logging into the app. Meanwhile, HDBank uses online customer identification eKYC, biometric user identification, SMS OTP, HDBank OTP with advanced 2FA (2-factor authentication) security features.

According to Master Mai Xuan Binh, the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the Duy Tan University, digital transformation in the financial sector aims to be assessed and used by all residents and businesses safely and conveniently.

Since 2018, Da Nang has officially started using online payment for public administrative services and many businesses have taken advantage of technology to provide different payment methods to customers. Service providers also offer a number of incentive programmes to promote the use of non-cash payment services. For example, a host of banks have launched free programmes for opening bank cards, paying annual fees, transferring fees, or geting a partial refund when paying via e-wallets.

To accelerate the road map of non-cash payment, the State needs to provide an open legal regulatory framework that enables businesses to offer services. Meanwhile, service providers need to provide full information on advantages and risks to users. In addition, users need to equip themselves with knowledge about online payment services because this development trend is suitable for modern society.

Meanwhile, VNPT is trying to have the best security because this is the trust of customers in VNPT services, showing a strong commitment to VNPT Pay partners and responsibility to the country when accompanying the national government, businesses and residents in during the ongoing journey towards the digital transformation.

“Recently, the VNPT Pay digital payment system of Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) was officially granted the international security certificate PCI DSS 3.2.1 after having passed 12 strict standards set by the Security Standards Council. When using online payment software and apps, uses should be careful not to send OTP, username/password to strangers, do not click on strange links sent via SMS, set a strong password according to the instructions, and setting up more security/authentication measures for high-value transactions. At the same time, it is necessary to consider using the apps and phone numbers receiving OTP on two different devices.” said Mr. Nguyen Nho Tuy.
 

Reporting by TIEU YEN- Translating by T.VY