Retail in Asia

In Trends

Vietnam’s oldest wet market now accepts mobile POS payments

Small merchants at the iconic Ben Thanh market in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City are now accepting card payments using mobile Point-of-Sale (mPOS).

Ben Thanh is the first wet market in Vietnam to accept electronic payments, a big milestone in its 100-year history. This was made possible by a partnership between MasterCard and Sacombank, which provided around 300 terminals.

“In Vietnam, limited acceptance is one of the key factors that hinders the development of electronic payments. Our collaboration with Sacombank extends the benefits of electronic payments to both merchants and consumers. Merchants who were previously unable to accept card payments now can use their own mobile phones as point-of-sale terminals to process card transactions, embedding them more firmly in the financial system. Meanwhile consumers who previously might have only carried cash now have more reasons to be banked and adopting electronic payments," said Arn Vogels, country manager for Indochina, MasterCard.

Insurance companies also provide an impetus for driving the adoption of electronic payments. MasterCard said MPOS benefits businesses which are inherently mobile in nature (such as insurance agents and food delivery) as well as small businesses, due to the lower cost of acceptance and also because it enables them to offer the convenience and security of electronic payments to their customers.

Vogels said the State Bank of Vietnam has set the goal of increasing the number of POS terminals to 250,000 by 2015.