Relying on the recovery wave of global digital trade and cross-border tourism, Vietnam is making every effort to promote the construction of a cross-border bilateral payment system. By opening up multi-country payment interconnection, breaking down barriers to cross-border consumption and trade settlement, it will promote the high-quality development of the digital economy, inbound tourism and bilateral economy and trade, and create a new highland for regional smart payments.
As the global tourism market continues to pick up, data from the United Nations Tourism Organization shows that the number of global international tourists will steadily rebound in 2025.
Vietnam’s tourism industry is experiencing explosive growth. It is expected to receive 21.5 million international tourists in 2025, with tourism revenue exceeding 1 trillion VND (approximately US$39 billion) for the first time.
The country has set new development goals, aiming to have 25 million inbound tourists in 2026 and 35 million in 2030.
Vietnam’s inbound tourists are highly concentrated, with more than 70% coming from the Asia-Pacific region. China, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, and Japan are the core source countries and are also key cooperation markets for Vietnam’s cross-border payment layout.
In order to meet the development needs of tourism and cross-border trade, Vietnam has vigorously promoted the construction of bilateral payment interconnection.
At present, Vietnam has successfully connected with the payment systems of China, South Korea, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to achieve convenient cross-border settlement.
Since the launch of the Vietnam-China and Vietnam-Korea bilateral payment projects in April 2026, the scale of cross-border transactions has continued to increase. Chinese tourists’ consumption experience in Vietnam using e-wallets such as Alipay and UnionPay has greatly improved, and market feedback has been good.
At the same time, Vietnam is actively promoting agreement negotiations and plans to add payment interconnection in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Taiwan, China, and continue to expand the cross-border payment territory.
The State Bank of Vietnam and financial institutions stated that traditional cross-border transactions are highly dependent on international intermediaries, resulting in high settlement costs and cumbersome processes.
The independently built bilateral payment system can realize direct settlement between countries, effectively reduce exchange costs, simplify transaction processes, and accumulate accurate transaction data to provide support for policy formulation and industrial planning, help the tourism industry implement the new “on-site export” model, and promote the upgrade of service trade.
The relevant person in charge of Mastercard pointed out that Vietnam’s digital payment infrastructure has been increasingly improved, but the domestic and overseas payment ecology has not yet been fully opened up, becoming a major bottleneck for tourists’ cross-border consumption.
In the next stage, the core of Vietnam’s digital payment growth is no longer to expand users and outlets, but to realize the interconnection and interoperability of the global payment ecosystem and create an omni-channel seamless payment experience.
Next, Vietnam will continue to improve laws and regulations in the payment field, upgrade national payment infrastructure, use artificial intelligence to prevent and control financial risks, and strengthen data interoperability and network security.
By continuing to expand bilateral payment cooperation countries, optimizing the payment acceptance network, taking into account the consumption of inbound tourists and the payment needs of nationals for outbound travel, study, and work, we will continue to activate the vitality of tourism and foreign trade, and lay a solid financial infrastructure foundation for the long-term development of Vietnam’s digital economy and green trade.
