In 1995, the first Visa transaction was accepted in Vietnam—the same year that relations between the United States and Vietnam were normalized. In 2006—the year before Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO)—Visa had 150,000 branded cards in Vietnam. Today, Visa has five million branded cards in Vietnam and transaction numbers grew 34% in the last twelve months before June 2016. According to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), by 2014, 76 million cards had been issued by 50 banks and credit institutes in Vietnam—but credit cards accounted for only 4 percent or approximately three million cards. By 2015, according to…
Author: Andrew Rowan
Author
Andrew Rowan
Andrew Rowan is an American entrepreneur who currently lives in Hanoi, Vietnam. Prior to moving to Hanoi in 2014, Andrew lived in Ho Chi Minh City for one year where he worked as a tech consultant and plunged into Vietnam’s startup scene. As Director of GKTA Group, he established a partnership with the €11 million ($12.2 million) Finland-Vietnam Innovation Partnership Program (IPP), which accelerates growth for startups originating from Vietnam and is supported by the Governments of Vietnam and Finland until 2018. Andrew regularly collaborates on innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives in Vietnam with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, as well as with Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).
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In 2002, according to Plastic Money, there were only nine foreign-operated ATMs (ANZ, HSBC, and Citibank) in the entire country with 79 locally-operated ATMs (all State-owned banks) and slightly more than 5,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals across Vietnam. Between 2011-2015, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) promoted non-cash payments, which led to the installation of more than 149,000 POS in Vietnam by the end of 2014. In 2015, there were at least 170,000 POS devices across the country with consumers having access to 16,000 ATMs, largely concentrated in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Today, there are more than 17,000 ATMs across the country. In short, Vietnam’s…