Got so many insights — so after a short break, restarting to share payments tips with you 😊
There’s something very interesting happening in Vietnam right now. While many people still associate Southeast Asia with e-wallet wars, Vietnam feels increasingly like a bank-led digital payments market.
A few things stood out to me:
🔵 QR is everywhere — and I mean everywhere.
Not as a “nice fintech add-on,” but as part of everyday payment behavior. I paid via Bybit Pay with a good rate — it’s just about 5–10 bps for conversion with the Central Bank FX rate. Btw all other PIs and PSPs, how are you still alive in the market with such rates? 😱
🔵 The infrastructure feels national, not fragmented.
Vietnam has built strong domestic rails around NAPAS + VietQR, which makes the experience feel more systemic than chaotic.
This is not just about local payments anymore. Vietnam is already expanding QR interoperability across borders — including links with Singapore and China. That is where it gets strategically interesting.
🔵 The banking system is still institution-heavy.
This is not a pure fintech playground. State-owned commercial banks still account for a major share of sector assets.
And maybe that is exactly why Vietnam is interesting: it is digitizing at speed without fully abandoning traditional banking architecture. That combination makes Vietnam stand out in SEA — not because it is the loudest market, but because it may become one of the most structurally important ones.
My takeaway after this trip: Vietnam is one of those markets where payments infrastructure is no longer “catching up.” It is becoming a competitive advantage.
Some market landscape. In 2025, the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) signed an agreement to launch QR code integration with Singapore NETS and launched a Vietnam–China cross-border QR payment flow under the VietQR Global brand.
At the same time, the country introduced a fintech sandbox for the banking sector — though its banking system remains quite “heavy” in structure: state-owned banks account for about 41% of sector assets.
Is the Vietnam case a precedent for other Southeast Asian countries? Or is it an exception? 🤔
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