Supply chain solutions and logistics services provider BEST Vietnam and Vietnam-based digital payment solution company VNPAY have partnered. As a result of this new partnership, the two companies aim to promote cashless payment solutions in Vietnam.

Starting from the day of the announcement it was revealed that Vietnamese consumers would be able to pay for their goods and their shipping fees by scanning the VNPAY QR code made available to them by BEST express couriers. According to the official release, the QR code will be generated separately for each shipment, and it will cover 32 banks and 15 e-wallets in the country. As noted by an official from BEST, by facilitating the use of cashless payments, the partnership marks a milestone for BEST in its wider endeavour to make it easy for Vietnamese consumers to shop online whilst leveraging cashless payment solutions.

The same representative further noted that BEST Vietnam also plans on improving the efficiency of COD reconciliation and, consequently, enable online shops to receive payments on the same day of the transaction. Similarly, a VNPAY QR official noted in the official statement that, apart from enabling consumers to make cashless payments, via this joint venture, the digital payment solution company seeks to establish a broader user base. The larger context This joint venture comes to address a pain point, as currently Vietnamese consumers prefer using cash instead of other payment methods.

Even more to this point, according to the official release, the Allied Market Research's Vietnam Express Delivery Services Market Report revealed that the cash-on-delivery model (COD) ratio for online purchases in the country now sits at over 80%. One disadvantage of the COD model is that it requires consumers and couriers to always carry cash. Further actors in the market that this model affects are merchants and logistics facilitators.

Ultimately, the COD model is said to cause disrupted, labour-intensive operations. Given the difficulties that the COD model entails, e-wallets have started to grow in popularity and are currently seen as a trend that facilitates the cash-less transformation for online shopping in the country. As reported by Robocash Group, the penetration of this payment method is self-evident.

According to the data, around 57% of Vietnam's adult population now uses e-wallets regularly . This is a significant growth as, at the end of 2018, only 14% of the same demographic did so. The newly announced partnership is expected to further enable e-wallet use in Vietnam, drive down the popularity of cash, and aid the larger trend towards digitalisation.

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