Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) held an international workshop on mobile money to promote financial inclusion, earlier this week.
According to a press release, the two-day event was designed to provide a comprehensive view on mobile money. Mobile money is the technology that allows people to receive, store, and spend money using a mobile phone.
The event allowed participants to share experiences and lessons from the implementation of the service in many countries worldwide, as well as put forward recommendations for Vietnam in a bid to enhance the country’s financial inclusion and support its digital transition.
At the event, the Minister of Information and Communication said if Vietnam approves a trial run of mobile money technology in 2019, the country will be the 91st nation operating the service in the world.
By the end of 2018, nearly 900 million people in 90 nations had used the technology. Mobile money had clocked in transactions worth about US 1.3 billion every day.
The Minister added that mobile money will be a solution that strongly promotes a cashless society. It will help less privileged people in mountainous and remote areas gain access to paid services on the Internet in fields including health, education, finance, jobs, and social welfare, among others.
Participants of the workshop also discussed challenges, risk management, the legal issues of mobile money, the implementation of mobile money in some countries, the experiences of foreign managers and businesses, and firms’ solutions in the digital payment revolution in the country.
Only about 40% of the country’s 95 million people have bank accounts, mostly in urban areas. There are around 120 million mobile phone subscriptions.
Earlier this month, the Ministry announced that a pilot plan for 5G technology is expected to be carried out this year so that by 2020 the country will become one of the first in the world to formally offer the service.
The official connection event marked the country’s progress in the field of information communication technologies. Now, it is one of the first countries to pilot 5G technology to serve the digital transformation process of the nation in the near future, and ready it for the fourth industrial revolution.
In April, the Ministry approved MobiFone’s proposal to pilot 5G free of charge, which would be carried out from 23 April 2019 to 22 April 2020.
This network provider will offer high-speed services like enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) to its customers to meet entertainment demands for online music listening, online video watching, and online real-time game playing (augmented reality and virtual reality).
Another giant telecommunications business in Vietnam has stated that it needs a strong research and development force to participate and master the 5G ecosystem from networks and foundation platforms to provide services, applications, and information security.
Therefore, the company has been focused on investing in research and development activities and increased collaborations with other leading technology firms to perfect its human resources.
Vietnam aims to be an industrial country by 2045, expecting over half of the population to in the middle-class income group by then. This goal may only be achieved through the digitalisation of many of its sectors. It will require ongoing cooperation between the public and private sectors of the country.
