On August 30th, 2017, National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Korea’s BC Card Global on cooperation to promote and strengthen the strategic relationship between the two switching organizations of the two countries; thereby contributing to the development of non-cash payment for the Vietnamese market.
The MOU signing ceremony was held at the NAPAS headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam, with the attendance of NAPAS chairman Nguyen Tu Anh, NAPAS president Le Quoc Hung, BC Card Global Head Lim Nam-hoon, and BC Card President Chae Jong-jin.
Under the signed cooperation agreement, both parties agreed to implement the following main contents: (i) Connecting the domestic card payment network between NAPAS and BC Card; (ii) Deploying remittance service via domestic card payment between Vietnam and Korea; (iii) Collaborative research on the implementation of digitized products and services; (vi) Sharing experiences in developing a card acceptance network.
Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy General Director of NAPAS Nguyen Dang Hung emphasized that “In order to develop a cashless economy, the Government of Vietnam has set a focused target of reducing the ratio of cash transactions to below 10% by the end of 2020. And according to the latest number, more than 80% of consumers in Vietnam are using debit cards issued by local banks. This is a great advantage for the banking industry to deploy various products and services, which make the use of card payments become easier and more conveniently. Therefore, the cooperation between NAPAS and BC Card will be an opportunity for NAPAS to realize this goal.”
BC Card is the leading card issuer and pioneer in the field of providing digitized products and services as well as modern payment products with high security in the Korean market. In 2016, BC Card issued 204 million cards; total domestic and international card transactions was up to USD 639 million while provided payment services to 2.9 million service providers, equivalent to 99% of Korean market.
“The partnership with NAPAS, the leading infrastructure company in Vietnam that will boost economic growth of ASEAN countries, is very significant. We will contribute to the development of the Vietnamese card market based on our various payment solutions and platform operating know-how,” said BC Card President Chae Jong-jin.
NAPAS president Le Quoc Hung (left) and BC Card President Chae Jong-jin (right) signing MOU
NAPAS was established in 2004, formerly known as Vietnam National Financial Switching Joint Stock Company (Banknetvn). NAPAS is the only payment intermediary - service provider licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam to provide financial switching services and electronic clearing services in Vietnam. NAPAS currently manages and operates interconnected switching systems of more than 17,300 ATMs, 270,600 POS machines, serving more than 100 million cardholders of 43 domestic and international commercial banks operating in Vietnam.