The National Payment Corporation of Viet Nam (NAPAS) recently completed the building of a standard set for domestic cards, according to State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV).

The new set is compatible with EMV standards as well as standards of international card organisations such as Visa, MasterCard, JCB and UnionPay.

NAPAS has handed over technical manuals to banks, point of sale (POS) terminal suppliers and card-issuing institutions so that they can adjust their systems in line with the new standards.

With the new set, SBV expects 70 million bank cards in Viet Nam, which are magnetic stripe ATM cards and can be easily hacked due to weak security features, to be replaced by chip cards with EMV standards by 2020 as planned.

Earlier, international card-issuing organisations had recommended Vietnamese banks to use chip cards meeting EMV standards to increase safety amidst growing card information thefts. Security experts, meanwhile, have warned that Viet Nam’s delayed transition to chip technology can put the country at risk of becoming a “haven” for card criminals from around the world as it is among the few countries where the use of magnetic swipe cards is still prevalent.

As a chip card costs some US$1.5-2.5, Viet Nam’s leading card-issuing banks, such as Vietcombank with 14 million cards, VietinBank (13.7 million cards), Agribank (11 million cards) and BIDV (10.4 million cards), will have to spend nearly $50 million to shift to chip cards. — VNS