Vietnam

NAPAS 247 has scaled past most regional peers without a national QR mandate

NAPAS 247 cleared 8.9 billion transactions in 2024 (+34% YoY), with VietQR being scanned ~15m times a day and street-vendor acceptance up 85% YoY into spring 2025. The volume growth has been organic rather than mandate-driven, helped by SBV's 2023 free-bank-to-bank circular; the cost structure pins what any merchant-acquiring or card-issuing operator can charge for routine peso-VND retail flow.

MoMo–ZaloPay–VNPay competition is consolidating around MoMo and the bank-app stack

MoMo's 2025 retrospective puts MAU at 32m (+12% YoY) on a revenue mix tilting from payments take-rate toward credit and financial-services fees; VNPay leads merchant acquiring on the PSP side; ZaloPay and ShopeePay run materially behind at ~7m users each. The shift in MoMo's economics is the operational answer to whether super-app wallet TPV can sustain — the answer in Vietnam appears to be credit attach, not pure A2A.

ASEAN+ QR mesh now reaches China, and the Singapore corridor opened in March 2026

The December 2025 VN-China VIETQRGlobal–UnionPay corridor processed ~5m inbound Chinese-tourist transactions in its first 100 days per NAPAS; the PayNow-VietQR Singapore corridor opened 25 March 2026. Combined with existing TH, KH, ID, LA bilateral corridors, NAPAS-routed cross-border QR is now a six-jurisdiction inbound-tourism rail and a structural compressor on cash-FX margin in the Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh airport corridors.

Bilateral QR corridors with TH, KH, ID, LA, SG now live; China inbound via VIETQRGlobal-UnionPay live December 2025; Japan, Korea, Malaysia in build-out under NAPAS / NAPAS International. The corridor mesh is the route to compressed inbound-tourist FX margin; operators routing into VND-cash-out at NAPAS-connected endpoints have the immediate fee pool.

Operationalised July 2024 covering P2P lending, credit scoring, open API and open banking; first cohort of eight participants admitted March 2026 on a two-year operating window. The sandbox is the principal regulated entry point for foreign fintech-strategic operators that need a controlled SBV-supervised launch.

Only ~8% of adults hold a credit card; SBV's 2025-30 Payment Sector Development Plan targets ~20% by 2030 through incumbent issuance and digital-bank-led acquisition. The starting base is small and the runway long — issuers with consumer-credit underwriting, scheme partnerships and digital-bank distribution have a multi-year accretion path.