Phones replacing wallets
During a trip to China over the April 30 holiday, L.H. Quang, a tourist from Ha Noi, barely needed to use cash. What impressed him most was being able to pay directly through VCB Digibank at local stores without exchanging Chinese Yuan (CNY) in advance.
“Although I travelled to China without enough time to exchange CNY, I simply opened VCB Digibank and scanned a QR code to pay directly from my account in Viet Nam. Transactions were processed quickly, and I did not need to carry cash or worry about exchanging foreign currency,” Quang said. According to him, direct QR payments are highly convenient, and many stores even offer incentives for first-time transactions, similar to the digital payment experience now common in Viet Nam.
A few years ago, such an experience was still unfamiliar to many Vietnamese users. But together with the rapid growth of QR payments and cross-border connectivity, smartphones are gradually replacing wallets on many trips.
Across Asia, QR codes are becoming one of the fastest-growing payment methods. In Viet Nam, Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank) has joined this trend through OneQR and QR Outbound, enabling customers to scan QR codes directly from domestic bank accounts at many overseas acceptance points.
From cafés and convenience stores to traditional markets, QR codes are becoming a familiar payment method for Vietnamese consumers. Financial transactions are therefore becoming more seamless and naturally integrated into daily life.
Banking linked with digital identity
While QR codes are changing payment habits, VNeID and electronic identification are opening a new phase for digital banking.
A representative of Vietcombank — the leading bank in the Vietnamese banking system — said the bank has recently completed a large number of online loans using VNeID authentication and remote digital signatures, allowing customers to avoid meeting bank staff in person. Procedures that once required paperwork and in-person signatures have now been reduced to just a few electronic verification steps on an app.
Over the past few years, Vietcombank has been among the pioneering banks deploying biometric authentication through chip-based citizen identity cards, integrating VNeID, remote digital signatures, and advanced authentication solutions such as SoftOTP. By the end of 2025, the bank had collected biometric data from more than 15 million customers, linked around 2.5 million social security accounts through VNeID, and disbursed approximately 8,350 billion VND via personal digital signatures.
This trend is also taking place in many countries around the world. India has connected Aadhaar with UPI to build a large-scale digital financial ecosystem. Singapore has integrated Singpass with banking and payment services, while Brazil has developed Pix into a nationwide instant payment infrastructure. The common feature of these models is that banks are becoming increasingly integrated with national data and digital identity systems.
Alongside online transactions, in-branch experiences are also being digitised further. With VCB Tablet, customers can complete procedures directly on digital devices instead of through traditional paper-based processes, helping shorten transaction times and synchronise data immediately at branches.
In 2026, VCB Tablet became the only Vietnamese product shortlisted in the Digital Innovation category at the ASEAN Digital Awards. The achievement highlights how Vietcombank’s digital transformation extends beyond mobile applications to the entire customer service journey.
In everyday life, these changes appear in many familiar moments: a parent paying school fees on a phone during rush hour, a customer authenticating a transaction with biometrics in just a few seconds, or young people opening online savings accounts late at night to “follow their idols” and collect codes for the gameshow “Quan Nha Haha”, where conversations about the connection between financial experiences, culture, cuisine, and modern lifestyles have recently generated lively discussions on social networks.
Digital transformation on the foundation of a major bank
What stands out in Vietcombank’s digital transformation journey is not a single product but the scale of deployment and the level of accessibility for users. In 2025, nearly 99% of the bank’s retail transactions were conducted through digital channels; its digital ecosystem processed around 1.17 billion transactions worth approximately 14.7 quadrillion VND, while nearly 18 million customers actively used VCB Digibank.
To support this scale, Vietcombank has gradually built a digital ecosystem including VCB Digibank, VCB DigiBiz, VCB CashUp, VCB Online Lending, and the iCare and iSchool platforms for healthcare and education. An important milestone in this process was the successful go-live of the Core Banking system in 2020 — a platform considered the “heart” of modern banking digital transformation.
From this foundation, Vietcombank has continued expanding towards data- and AI-driven operations, integrating big data and modern forecasting models into management, business activities, and risk governance. This is also the direction pursued by many international banks such as DBS Bank, JPMorgan, and BBVA: digital transformation is not only about faster transactions but also about operating more efficiently, intelligently, and securely.
What distinguishes Vietcombank is that its digital transformation is taking place on the foundation of one of Viet Nam’s largest banks in terms of assets, data, customer base, and security requirements, while still maintaining effective business performance, system stability, and top-tier asset quality.
Digital banking may begin with a QR scan or a VNeID authentication. But what creates a lasting difference is the ability to maintain convenience, security, and stability for millions of customers every day.
