At its quarterly banking results press briefing, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reported continued rapid growth in cashless payments and outlined ongoing regulatory, infrastructure and fraud-prevention measures supporting the banking sector’s digital transformation, including expanded biometric customer verification and wider use of the SIMO anti-fraud monitoring system. Interbank electronic payments processed nearly VND 130 quadrillion in value through the end of Q1 2026, up more than 70% year on year. Over the first two months of 2026, cashless payments totalled around 4.7 billion transactions worth VND 57.4 quadrillion (up 40.74% in volume and 13.41% in value), and SBV cited 2025 cashless-payment value at around 28 times GDP. Cross-border retail QR code payment connectivity has been completed with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and China, with links to other countries under implementation; many credit institutions reported over 95% of transactions conducted via digital channels. Under the national digital identity programme (Project 06), nearly 155 million customer records had been biometrically matched via chip-based citizen IDs or VNeID by 3 April 2026, and SBV reported synchronising four sectoral databases to the National Data Centre. On payment security, SBV highlighted requirements tying online withdrawals and electronic payments from a payment account to successful matching of identity documents and biometric information, broader use of biometric authentication for online transactions, and administrative penalties for misuse of payment accounts and e-wallets. Work is also under way with ministries to match Mobile Banking SIM subscriber information to payment-account holders and to conduct a broad review of payment accounts and phone SIMs. As of 12 April 2026, SIMO participants reported more than 3.7 million customer warnings, with over 1.2 million transactions paused or cancelled representing nearly VND 4.17 trillion.
State Bank of Vietnam 2026-04-14
State Bank of Vietnam reports strong cashless payments growth and scales up biometric verification and SIMO fraud monitoring
The State Bank of Vietnam reported strong growth in cashless payments alongside regulatory, infrastructure and fraud-prevention measures to support banking sector digitalisation, including expanded biometric verification and wider use of the SIMO anti-fraud system. Interbank electronic payments reached nearly VND 130 quadrillion in Q1 2026, with cashless payments up sharply year on year and cross-border retail QR code connectivity completed with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and China. SBV also highlighted enhanced payment security linking transactions to biometric and identity verification, SIM subscriber–account matching, and SIMO-driven interventions that have paused or cancelled over VND 4.17 trillion in suspicious transactions.