Vietnam Prepaid Card, Stored Value and Digital Wallet Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics Databook, Q2 2026 Update

Key Trends and Drivers

Tighten identification and authentication, shifting growth toward verified prepaid cards

• Vietnam’s most important recent prepaid-card change is a regulatory reset around verified cardholders rather than a simple expansion in card issuance. State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Circular 45/2025/TT-NHNN, issued in November 2025 and effective from January 5, 2026, strengthened customer verification for bank cards, including identity-document checks, biometric matching and verification of registered mobile numbers for applicable digital processes. Circular 77/2025/TT-NHNN, effective from March 2026, goes further by explicitly placing money transfers from personalized/identified prepaid cards within prescribed online-transaction authentication requirements. The direction therefore favours identified and controllable prepaid products, while reducing the practical role of anonymous or lightly verified prepaid usage.
• The immediate driver is rising regulatory attention to payment fraud and misuse of card credentials. In July 2026, the SBV asked banks and payment intermediaries to strengthen card-security controls after identifying practices including removal and substitution of chips from physical cards and payment arrangements linking internationally branded cards to foreign wallets. The regulator also instructed issuers to review compliance with cardholder-information requirements and strengthen monitoring at accepting merchants. This makes fraud prevention, biometric verification and traceable ownership operational requirements rather than optional enhancements for prepaid issuers.
• The trend should intensify, but its effect will be uneven. Identified reloadable prepaid cards should become more defensible for online transfers, e-commerce and higher-frequency usage because issuers can support them within authenticated digital environments. Conversely, low-engagement anonymous prepaid propositions are likely to lose relative importance as compliance and fraud controls become stricter. Issuers will incur additional onboarding and authentication costs, but the same controls should make verified prepaid more suitable for repeated loading and digital transactions. Consequently, growth is more likely to come from active, identified cards and transaction frequency than from indiscriminate expansion of prepaid card counts.

Move general-purpose prepaid deeper into app-native virtual formats

• Virtual prepaid itself is not new in Vietnam; what has changed recently is its tighter integration with identified, biometrically authenticated banking-app environments. Sacombank’s updated Sacombank Pay terms, effective September 15, 2025, explicitly define the Sacombank Pay Prepaid Card as a non-physical prepaid card that cannot be converted into a physical card. The same terms state that an unidentified Sacombank Pay account cannot conduct financial transactions and set out biometric and OTP-based authentication methods. Hong Leong Bank Vietnam also currently offers a virtual Visa Prepaid Card through its mobile application, without requiring a conventional bank account, with online transfers available for identified prepaid cards. The product format is therefore evolving from “prepaid plastic” toward a stored-value credential embedded in a banking application.
• The model fits Vietnam’s increasingly regulated digital-payment environment because issuance, card controls and authentication can be concentrated in the mobile application rather than relying on a separate physical-card onboarding process. Sacombank’s September 2025 documentation connects its non-physical prepaid card directly with biometric verification against citizen ID information, while Hong Leong allows customers to issue and control its virtual prepaid product through Hong Leong Connect, including blocking e-commerce transactions in-app. This creates a clearer use case for prepaid among consumers who want controlled online or international spending without using a credit line or maintaining a separate conventional card product.
• Virtual prepaid should gain share within general-purpose prepaid, particularly for online purchases, bill payment and controlled international spending. Physical GPR cards are unlikely to disappear, but their incremental role will weaken where an app can issue the credential immediately and handle reloading, controls and authentication. This should shift activity toward digitally issued, identified and reloadable cards, with higher potential transaction frequency per active card. It also means prepaid issuers will increasingly compete on app functionality and security rather than on the physical card itself.

Turn gift cards into digital, reloadable and loyalty-linked retail balances

• Vietnam’s closed-loop prepaid segment is showing a more visible move from one-time physical gift cards toward digital issuance, online redemption, reloadability and loyalty integration. CGV Vietnam’s Tết 2026 gift-card proposition illustrates the shift: its online gift card is activated to the purchaser’s account, can be gifted electronically through card credentials sent by email, can be used through CGV’s web/app or by QR at cinema counters, and can be reloaded or extended. CGV simultaneously retains a physical Tết 2026 version, showing that digital and physical formats are increasingly serving different use cases rather than one simply replacing the other.
• Retailers are increasingly linking prepaid balances to their broader digital-commerce and loyalty ecosystems. Saigon Centre’s May 2026 Rewards+ campaign awarded loyalty points for qualifying gift-card purchases, directly connecting stored-value purchases with membership engagement. A further change appeared in January 2026 when CJ Olive Young began distributing mobile gift cards to Vietnamese consumers through local mobile-voucher operator M12PLUS, Giftpop and Lazada Vietnam. That development demonstrates how digital gift-card distribution can also connect Vietnamese consumers with foreign retail and travel-related spending rather than being limited to domestic store-issued plastic.
• The gift-card segment should continue shifting toward digital issuance and redemption, but physical cards will remain relevant for festive and in-store gifting. The larger structural change will be in usage: reloadable products such as CGV’s can generate repeat top-ups and transactions instead of ending after the original stored value is spent, while digital distribution through marketplaces can broaden gift-card reach without equivalent physical distribution costs. As retailers connect cards to loyalty accounts and online storefronts, gift-card transaction volume is therefore likely to become less concentrated around one-time seasonal purchases and more integrated into recurring retail engagement.

Create a clearer regulatory opening for corporate and controlled-spend prepaid cards

• Vietnam has introduced a more explicit legal basis for organisation-identified prepaid cards, potentially strengthening the corporate-expense and controlled-disbursement segment. Circular 45/2025 states that legal entities established and operating lawfully in Vietnam may use identified prepaid cards and requires an organisational primary cardholder to provide written authorisation for supplementary cardholders. It also establishes identification requirements for organisational representatives and additional conditions for electronic card transactions. This is significant because corporate prepaid is now addressed directly within the amended bank-card framework rather than being treated primarily as a consumer stored-value proposition.
• The regulatory change aligns with the inherent controlled-spend characteristics of business prepaid. Mastercard’s Vietnam-facing Business Prepaid proposition describes prepaid as suitable for freelancers, small businesses and larger companies for disbursements, payments and expenses, including spend monitoring and controls, without requiring credit approval. Circular 45 adds a clearer domestic governance structure around who represents an organisation, who may use supplementary cards and when electronic transactions are permitted. The combination lowers ambiguity for banks and program managers considering prepaid-based corporate expense, allowance or disbursement products, although it should not be interpreted as evidence that large-scale corporate prepaid issuance has already occurred.
• This trend is likely to build gradually rather than accelerate immediately. The clearest opportunities are controlled corporate expenses, employee travel allowances, project spending, procurement and other disbursements where an employer wants prefunded spending limits rather than credit exposure or cash reimbursement. If banks and fintech program managers commercialise the regulatory opening, growth could come through reload activity and transaction value per corporate card rather than very large cardholder numbers. Compliance requirements around representatives, supplementary users and authentication will favour issuers with stronger digital onboarding and card-management capabilities, which may limit rapid proliferation of smaller programs.

Competitive Landscape

Current State of the Market

• Vietnam’s open-loop prepaid market remains bank-led, but competition is moving from physical issuance toward app-based, identified prepaid products. Sacombank embeds a non-physical prepaid card within Sacombank Pay, Hong Leong Bank Vietnam offers an instantly issued virtual Visa prepaid card, and Nam A Bank continues to compete with Mastercard prepaid. Meanwhile, Circular 45/2025/TT-NHNN, effective January 2026, raises identification and compliance requirements, favouring issuers with stronger digital onboarding and authentication capabilities.

Key Players and New Entrants

• The identifiable bank competitors include Sacombank, Hong Leong Bank Vietnam and Nam A Bank, with Visa and Mastercard providing international-network infrastructure. Closed-loop competition is more retailer-led: CGV operates physical and digital prepaid gift cards, while Saigon Centre and Estella Place use multi-merchant gift cards integrated with Rewards+. Takashimaya also maintains prepaid Bonus Point Gift Cards linked to its loyalty ecosystem and Vietcombank relationship.

Recent Launches, Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• Recent competitive activity has been concentrated in digital prepaid and gift distribution rather than M&A. CGV’s Tết 2026 e-gift card supports online issuance, QR redemption and reloading. CJ Olive Young also began selling mobile gift cards to Vietnamese consumers in January 2026 through local e-commerce channels, while Saigon Centre promoted Rewards+-linked gift-card purchasing in May 2026. These moves bring retailers, loyalty platforms and digital voucher distributors into closer competition with traditional card issuers for prepaid spending.

Overview of Prepaid Cards and Digital Wallet Market

Prepaid Card Market Analysis

• Metrics Assessed: The study examines the prepaid card market through various lenses, including transaction value, transaction volume, average transaction value, load value, and the total number of cards in circulation.
• Card Types: A distinction is made between open-loop and closed-loop prepaid cards, providing insights into their respective market shares and growth trajectories.
• Usage Categories: The report segments the prepaid card market into various categories such as general-purpose cards, business and administrative expense cards, travel forex cards, and meal cards.
• Business Segmentation: Further segmentation is provided based on business size and type, including small-scale businesses, mid-tier businesses, enterprise-level businesses, government entities, and retail consumers.
• Sector-Specific Applications: The analysis extends to specific sectors utilizing prepaid cards, including transit and toll payments, healthcare and wellness services, social security and other government benefit programs, fuel purchases, utilities, and more.

Digital Wallet Market Insights

• Key Segments: The digital wallet market is dissected across five primary spending categories: retail shopping, travel, entertainment and gaming, dining establishments, and recharge and bill payments.
• Performance Metrics: For each segment, the report evaluates transaction value, transaction volume, and average transaction value, offering a granular view of consumer spending behaviors.
• Retail Spend Breakdown: An in-depth analysis is provided for retail spending via digital wallets, covering categories such as food and grocery, health and beauty products, apparel and footwear, books, music and video, consumer electronics, pharmacy and wellness, gas stations, restaurants and bars, toys, kids and baby products, services, and other miscellaneous categories.

Virtual Prepaid Card Market Segmentation

• Categories Analyzed: The virtual prepaid card market is segmented into key categories, including general-purpose cards, gift cards, entertainment and gaming cards, teen and campus cards, business and administrative expense cards, payroll cards, meal cards, travel forex cards, transit and toll cards, social security and other government benefit program cards, fuel cards, utilities, and other miscellaneous categories.
• Performance Evaluation: For each category, the report assesses transaction value, providing insights into the adoption and usage patterns of virtual prepaid cards across different consumer segments.

Consumer Usage Trends

The report delves into consumer behavior concerning prepaid cards, segmented by:

• Age Groups: Identifying usage patterns across different age demographics.
• Income Levels: Analyzing how income brackets influence prepaid card adoption and usage.
• Gender: Examining differences in usage trends between genders.

Report Scope

Vietnam Prepaid Payment Instrument Market Size and Forecast

• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Market Share Analysis by Prepaid Card vs. Digital Wallet

Vietnam Digital Wallet Market Size and Forecast

• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Market Share Analysis by Key Segments

Vietnam Digital Wallet Market Size and Forecast by Key Segments

• Retail Shopping - Transaction Value, Volume, and Average Value
• Travel - Transaction Value, Volume, and Average Value
• Restaurant - Transaction Value, Volume, and Average Value
• Entertainment and Gaming - Transaction Value, Volume, and Average Value
• Recharge and Bill Payment - Transaction Value, Volume, and Average Value

Vietnam Digital Wallet Retail Spend Dynamics

• Food and Grocery - Transaction Value
• Health and Beauty Products - Transaction Value
• Apparel and Footwear - Transaction Value
• Books, Music and Video - Transaction Value
• Consumer Electronics - Transaction Value
• Pharmacy and Wellness - Transaction Value
• Gas Stations - Transaction Value
• Restaurants and Bars - Transaction Value
• Toys, Kids, and Baby Products - Transaction Value
• Services - Transaction Value
• Others - Transaction Value

Vietnam Prepaid Card Industry Market Attractiveness

• Load Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Number of Cards
• Market Share Analysis by Functional Attributes - Open Loop vs. Closed Loop
• Market Share Analysis by Prepaid Card Categories

Vietnam Prepaid Card Operational and Usage KPIs

• Average Annual Spend per User
• Average Annual Load per Card
• Unredeemed Balance Rate
• Reloadable Prepaid Card Share
• Non-Reloadable Prepaid Card Share
• Domestic Transaction Share
• International Transaction Share

Vietnam Open Loop Prepaid Card Future Growth Dynamics

• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Number of Cards

Vietnam Closed Loop Prepaid Card Future Growth Dynamics

• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Number of Cards

Vietnam Prepaid Card Consumer Usage Trends

• By Age Group
• By Income Group
• By Gender

Vietnam Prepaid Card Retail Spend Dynamics

• Food and Grocery - Transaction Value
• Health and Beauty Products - Transaction Value
• Apparel and Footwear - Transaction Value
• Books, Music and Video - Transaction Value
• Consumer Electronics - Transaction Value
• Pharmacy and Wellness - Transaction Value
• Gas Stations - Transaction Value
• Restaurants and Bars - Transaction Value
• Toys, Kids, and Baby Products - Transaction Value
• Services - Transaction Value
• Others - Transaction Value

Vietnam General Purpose Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Gift Card Market Size and Forecast

Gift Card Market Size and Forecast by Functional Attribute

• By Open Loop Gift Card
• By Closed Loop Gift Card

Gift Card Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Segments

• By Retail Consumer Segment
• By Corporate Consumer Segment

Gift Card Market Share Analysis

• By Retail Categories
• By Gifting Occasion
• By Purchase Location

Vietnam Entertainment and Gaming Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Teen and Campus Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast by Functional Attribute

• By Open Loop Teen and Campus Prepaid Card
• By Closed Loop Teen and Campus Prepaid Card

Vietnam Business and Administrative Expense Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Segments

• By Small Scale Business Segment
• By Mid-Tier Business Segment
• By Enterprise Business Segment
• By Government Segment

Vietnam Payroll Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Segments

• By Small Scale Business Segment
• By Mid-Tier Business Segment
• By Enterprise Business Segment
• By Government Segment

Vietnam Meal Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Segments

• By Small Scale Business Segment
• By Mid-Tier Business Segment
• By Enterprise Business Segment
• By Government Segment

Vietnam Travel Forex Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Segments

• By Retail
• By Small Scale Business Segment
• By Mid-Tier Business Segment
• By Enterprise Business Segment
• By Government Segment

Vietnam Transit and Tolls Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Social Security and Other Government Benefit Programs Prepaid Card Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Fuel Prepaid Cards Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Utilities and Other Prepaid Cards Market Size and Forecast

Vietnam Virtual Prepaid Card Industry Market Attractiveness

• Transaction Value Trend Analysis
• Transaction Volume Trend Analysis
• Average Value per Transaction
• Market Share Analysis by Key Virtual Prepaid Card Categories

Vietnam Virtual Prepaid Card Market Size by Key Categories

• General Purpose Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Gift Card - Transaction Value
• Entertainment and Gaming Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Teen and Campus Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Business and Administrative Expense Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Payroll Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Meal Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Travel Forex Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Transit and Tolls Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Social Security and Other Government Benefit Programs Prepaid Card - Transaction Value
• Fuel Prepaid Cards - Transaction Value
• Utilities and Other Prepaid Cards - Transaction Value

Reasons to buy

• Gain an in-depth understanding of Vietnam’s prepaid card and digital wallet market dynamics:

• Understand Vietnam’s market opportunities and key trends with forward-looking forecasts, 2021-2030:

• Develop Vietnam-specific prepaid card and digital wallet strategies:

• Analyse Vietnam’s market share and competitive positioning across key prepaid and wallet categories:

• Gain insights into Vietnam’s consumer attitudes and payment behaviour: