The front page of San Francisco-based digital payment platform Paymentwall. The company is tapping into Vietnamese market after recognizing huge potential here.

by Ngoc Nguyen

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — San Francisco-based digital payment platform, Paymentwall, is among the few Silicon Valley companies to foray into Viet Nam, eyeing the country's burgeoning Internet and mobile consumer market.

Paymentwall system, which has been installed in more than 180 countries, accepts at least 75 different currencies. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has set up 10 global offices; its Hanoi office opened about a year ago. With fully functional sales and marketing teams and developers in all units, all 10 are full-fledged offices.

Its payment options include credit card, debit card, mobile payments, telephone payments, prepaid cards, ATM, terminal transactions, bank transfers, and direct bills, among many others.

"We work with websites such as dating, gaming, SaaS companies, and help them monetize their content and services anywhere in the world," said the company's global sales development manager Jon Wintermeyer.

The Silicon Valley tech firm forays into Vietnam after recognising the potential of the young market segment that is tech-savvy and has increasing incomes. "We are looking at a couple of things in Vietnam. One is the country's help in establishing payment partnership with clients," Wintermeyer added. "When we looked at Hanoi, we saw great business development, especially in the mobile space."

He explained that Vietnam boasts of huge e-commerce potential, which will be an advantage for the company as it is planning to develop different products. MINT, one of its latest prepaid card products, is doing well in the Philippines and the Middle East. The sales manager hopes to launch it in Vietnam as a top prepaid card option to help more online businesses accept payment.

"With MINT, we are trying to adapt to the Vietnamese people's habit of using cash and ATM cards. We are not trying to change the way people pay but just make it easier for anyone who wants to pay," he stated.

Talking about future partnerships, Wintermeyer remarked that he expects to rely on the expertise of Vietnamese partners to develop locally. "Our local sales and business development teams are negotiating with different distributors. So far it has been going really well."

"I think local team is a requirement if you really want to launch successful products here," he added. — VNS