Tiếng Việt
普通话
The central bank move comes after the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) did not throw its weight behind the proposal.
VCCI, commenting on a draft circular amending and supplementing Circular 39/2014, said that the limit on daily online transactions through e-wallets was inappropriate, as the prices of electronic devices and tours are way above VND20 million each.
The central bank at a press briefing on June 10 in HCMC pledged to remove the proposed daily limit and only impose a monthly limit of VND100 million on each e-wallet user.
Statistics from the central bank showed that the daily average transaction value of a new e-wallet account is VND58,000, or some VND1.74 million per month. Data released at a recent meeting on mobile money also indicated that the global average figure is some VND5 million per month.
Accordingly, the proposed monthly limit of VND100 million per individual in the country was not low compared to that of the world, said Pham Tien Dung, director of the payment department at the central bank.
The bank had set the transaction value limits to cope with existing loopholes in the process used by businesses to verify their customers’ identity, also called the “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process.
The KYC process is incomplete in Vietnam, making it difficult for local authorities to determine whether e-wallet users are involved in fraud and money-laundering, said Dung.
The head of the payment department added that there were even e-wallet accounts owned by retail agents who accepted cash from particular customers and then transferred the money to individual e-wallet accounts. Also, some e-wallet providers allow clients to withdraw cash from their accounts. Both practices go against the effort to reduce the use of cash for payment.
In the coming days, the transaction value limits and the KYC process will be applied to a project run by local mobile carriers Viettel and VNPT to pilot mobile money services.
Apart from the central bank in Vietnam, foreign monetary authorities have also imposed caps on the value of online transactions through e-wallets. Singapore set the daily limit at SG$5,000 (US$3,600) and the annual limit at SG$30,000 per individual.
Data from the Ecommerce and Digital Economy Agency showed that online payments in Vietnam have grown sharply by 35% annually, resulting in e-wallet accounts booming. However, only 4.2 million e-wallets were linked to bank accounts as of last year, and transactions made through them accounted for a mere 1% of the country’s total online transactions.
Many people stopped using e-wallets after they used up the promotional money offered by e-wallet providers to new users, which is among the many reasons for the low number of online transactions using e-wallets.