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Vietnam, Thailand lead Southeast Asia's cashless push

April 23, 2019

Thailand and Vietnam are fast becoming mobile payments markets as the two countries' governments encourage a push toward cashlessness.

A lack of banking and payments infrastructure in these less-developed Asian economies is one factor driving these countries to leapfrog Southeast Asia's more developed payments market, according to a report by Nikkei Asian Review.

Less than half (40%) of Vietnamese have a bank account. But the country's 95 million residents have a total of 120 million mobile phone subscriptions and mobile coverage is available nationwide. 

Many of the nation's carriers also offer e-wallets and are seeing an upsurge in consumer interest. The percentage of mobile payments users leapt from 37% in 2018 to 61% in 2019, the report said.

Thailand has an even larger mobile payments penetration rate — in fact, the region's highest at 67%. Banks are are playing a key role in furthering a push to cashless by a government that believes eliminating cash will also help to eliminate a good deal of bribery and corruption.