The State Bank of Việt Nam said the tightened regulations aimed to prevent the rampant opening of e-wallets and using them for money laundering. — File Photo

HÀ NỘI – A daily trading limits for individual e-wallets would be set at VNĐ20 million (US$850) and VNĐ100 million per month, according to a draft circular from the State Bank of Việt Nam recently made public for comment.

The limits would be set for money transfers and payments for goods and services.

The draft circular is an amendment to Circular No 39 regarding intermediary payment services, and also sets a daily trading limit of VNĐ100 million and a monthly trading limit of VNĐ500 million for e-wallets opened by organisations.

The draft also raised regulations aimed at tightening the opening of e-wallets.

In order to open e-wallets, individuals and organisations would be required to provide information such as identity cards or passports, business registration certificates and phone numbers registered for e-banking services.

E-wallets must be linked to a bank account to be activated, the draft said.

In addition, e-wallets could only be recharged through payments or debit cards from the owner or through other e-wallets issued by the same provider.

The State Bank of Việt Nam said the tightened regulations aimed to prevent the rampant opening of e-wallets and using them for money laundering.

The central bank also said that setting daily and monthly trading limits because the major purpose of e-wallets was making payments for small transactions.

Financial expert Bùi Quang Tín said that requiring users to provide personal information would help manage the development of the service.

However, Tín said the stricter regulations could make people hesitate about opening an e-wallet due to the large amount of personal data they would have to provide. E-wallet service providers needed to offer convenience to attract users and meet the demands of cashless payment development, he said.

Central bank statistics showed there were around 26 e-wallet service providers in Việt Nam as of the end of 2018, including MoMo, AirPay, ZaloPay, Vimo, VTCPay, SenPay, TrueMoney and Moca, together with 10,000 firms accepting e-wallet payments.

There were also around 4.2 million e-wallets linked to bank accounts.  VNS