National brand for bank card to be developed

The Vietnam National Financial Switching JSC and the Smartlink Card JSC have merged to develop a national brand for domestic bank cards.

The State Bank of Vietnam has just announced the official plan to switch from magnetic-strip to chip-based cards. This is a crucial step in adopting international standard bank cards.

"Building a national brand plays an important role in improving the value and competitiveness of Vietnamese bank cards in both domestic and international markets." - Nguyen Kim Anh, VIce Governor, State Bank of Vietnam.

The national bank card brand NAPAS will be adopted by all domestic cards issued by Vietnam’s banks. The card will help its owner identify transaction points, accept payments through ATM and POS of domestic banks and connect to the international bank card system.

"With the new card type, we can develop internet banking, mobile banking services and support card digitisation as well as new services; then we can develop national standards for all domestic bank cards." - Pham Tien Dung, Chairman, Managing board, NAPAS.

Raising standards for national bank cards will ensure better security for owners and mitigate losses in transactions, and ultimately open up more services for customers. This is the foundation for connecting domestic and international card systems.

By 2020, all the domestic bank cards will be branded as NAPAS, and will play a larger role in payments rather than just mainly being used for cash withdrawals at ATMs as currently.