Visa and SeA Bank Team to Drive Digital Payments in Vietnam

Visa is expanding its partnership with Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank).

The latest effort between the two companies is designed to help develop digital payments in Vietnam, SeABank said in a news release Wednesday (May 29).

According to a news release, the effort is based on a series of “pillars,” including improved card products and services, optimizing the card service ecosystem on digital platforms and enhancing risk and fraud management in card issuance and payments.

“As the rapid transition from cash to digital payments in Vietnam opens up many opportunities for card development, the expanded cooperation is expected to help SeABank break through, thereby opening up opportunities towards the future of digital payment, contributing to the national digital transformation,” the release said.

The partnership comes, as PYMNTS wrote last week, at a moment when evidence points to a tipping point for digital payment methods.

“As PYMNTS Intelligence and the Federal Reserve have reported, consumers and businesses are accelerating their use of digital wallets and instant payments,” that report said, noting also that Fed’s Consumer Research Brief found that 57% of consumers say they expect to use faster payment options more extensively in the future.

The Fed brief also linked to the “2024 Global Digital Shopping Index: U.S. Edition,” noting that the joint effort by Visa Acceptance Solutions and PYMNTS had underlined “the growing incidence of digital payments and the breaking down of boundaries between online and in-store shopping experiences.”

But there is a cost for merchants and financial institutions taking part in this rapid expansion, and they need to be ready for it.

Joe Meuse, vice president of product at Spreedly, told PYMNTS that this growth rate is notably higher than previous years — twice the rate seen in the previous three years and triple that of six years earlier. This rapid expansion underscores the rising complexity and cost associated with modern payment systems.

“There’s a lot of complexity behind the scene as merchants solve new problems and make investments to support that modernization,” Meuse said during a recent “What’s Next in Payments” interview, noting also that keeping abreast of consumers’ changing tastes requires both hardware and software investments.

“It’s not cheap to do digital payments,” he said, noting that merchant processing costs are a major part of the expense of payments acceptance.