Digital payment market consolidates under big names

As of August, Payoo, MoMo, SenPay, Moca and Airpay altogether amounted to over 80 percent of deposits in all digital wallets, according to data from the State Bank of Vietnam’s (SBV) Department of Payments (DoP).

In the same period, Airpay, MoMo, Senpay, Moca and VTC Pay accounted for over 74 percent of all registered wallets in the market.

Around 95 percent of total transaction value in the market had been made through Payoo, MoMo, Senpay, Airpay and Zalopay.

So far this year, payments through digital wallets accounted for 19 percent of total transaction value on Vietnam’s e-commerce websites, on par with transactions by cash, according to a report by American multinational investment bank JP Morgan.

Card payments amounted to 34 percent of transaction value, followed by bank transfers at 22 percent, while other modes of payment made up the remaining 6 percent.

With the $6.2 billion e-commerce market forecasted to grow 19 percent per year until 2021, Vietnam’s e-wallets are set to be the fastest-growing e-commerce payment method, expanding 28 percent per year. They are set to become the second most-used payment method after cards by 2021, the report said.

Economists have said that the potential for cashless payment in Vietnam is huge due to a growing middle class and rapidly improving telecom infrastructure. The government targets to make 90 percent of all transactions cashless by 2020.

Vietnamese electronic wallet and payment application Momo has made it into the 2019 Fintech100 list of leading global fintech innovators.

Momo is the only Vietnamese representative in the ‘Leading 50’ category and is in 36th place in the annual list which is compiled by Australian fintech venture capital investment firm H2 Ventures and accounting and auditing company KPMG.