Sean Preston, Visa country manager for Việt Nam, Cambodia and Laos talks about consumption in Viet Nam. — VNS Photo

HCM CITY – Visa Vietnam on Thursday announced that its mVisa, a quick response (QR) code-based payments service, will soon be expanded to merchants and consumers in 10 countries, including Việt Nam.

mVisa is a mobile payments solution that brings the benefits of easy and secure digital commerce to financial institutions, merchants and consumers, helping accelerate global migration from cash to electric payments.

The new payment service will also help merchants reduce their investments in expensive point-of-sale infrastructure.

Sean Preston, Visa country manager for Việt Nam, Cambodia and Laos, announced that his company was working with banks and merchants so that the service could come out late this year.

On the same day, Visa announced its 2016 Consumer Payment Attitudes Study, which said that consumers in Việt Nam were increasingly leaving their cash at home, with 62 per cent preferring to use electronic payments.

“When asked why they are carrying less cash the majority of consumers said this was because of greater usage of cards and safety concern of carrying cash,” the study said.

Visa said that its findings come on the back of an announcement that the Vietnamese Government plans to make transactions almost totally electronic by 2020 with the goal of having only 10 per cent of all transaction conducted.

The company’s survey also showed that 83 per cent of respondents said they shopped online at least once a month, an increase of 11 per cent over 2015.

It also uncovered positive attitudes towards some of the less frequently discussed aspects of electronic payments.

For instance, 77 per cent of Vietnamese respondents had a favourable view of services that use automated payments to eliminate the physical process of paying, such as taxi apps.

In addition, 72 per cent said that they were comfortable with the use of biometrics such as fingerprints and face recognition for payment authentication.

The survey, conducted in October last year, was an online study of payment behavior and trends across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Việt Nam and the Philippines.

Respondents were people above the age of 18 with a monthly personal income of VNĐ5 million and above. – VNS