VietQR

TypeQR Code

PrimaryVN

MentionedKH LA VN

Completeness88%high

Overview

VietQR is Vietnam's national interbank QR payment standard, launched in 2021 by NAPAS (National Payment Corporation of Vietnam) under State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) oversight [1, 2, vn-cro]. It is EMVCo-MPM compliant, with 50+ Vietnamese banks as participants [2, vn-cro]. By 2024 the NAPAS 247 instant rail processed ~8.9 billion transactions; in the first 10 months of 2025 VietQR volume grew +52 % YoY and value +85 % YoY — the fastest-growing payment segment in Vietnam — with NAPAS now running at ~35 million transactions per day, nearly half of which are VietQR VN. VietQR is accepted by ~2.1 million merchants (~85 % merchant reach), driven by adoption alongside Vietnam's vibrant e-wallet ecosystem (MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay, ShopeePay, ViettelPay).

A distinctive companion product is VietQRCash (launched August 2023): cardless ATM withdrawals via VietQR scan — now live at 60 %+ of Vietnam's ATMs VN.

History

2017 — NAPAS established as Vietnam's national payment infrastructure operator under SBV VN.

NAPAS 247 (the underlying instant payment rail):

Real-time inter-bank credit transfer system
24/7/365 operation
Sub-10-second processing
Maximum: 500 million VND per transaction VN

2021 — VietQR launched:

NAPAS unveiled the unified QR code system in 2021 as a shared brand for Vietnamese banks [2]
Adoption ramp: 14 of 51 banks in the NAPAS network had embraced VietQR by mid-2021; 90 % of the remaining banks expected to adopt by end of 2021 [2]

Subsequent milestones [vn-cro, 3]:

August 2023 — VietQRCash launched: cardless ATM withdrawals via mobile-banking-app QR scan; now covers 60 %+ of Vietnam's ATMs [vn-cro, 4].
2024 — Total NAPAS 247 network volume ~8.9 billion transactions VN.
First 10 months of 2025 — VietQR volume +52 % YoY; value +85 % YoY VN.
October 2024 — UPI ↔ NAPAS linkage MoU signed between India and Vietnam (PM-level), witnessed by leaders of both countries VN.
December 2, 2025 — China ↔ Vietnam cross-border QR live: Chinese tourists scan VietQR Global with Alipay/WeChat Pay; Vietnamese in China expected by early 2026 [vn-cro, 5].

Technical specification

VietQR adopts the EMVCo Merchant-Presented Mode (MPM) specification with SBV / NAPAS compliance requirements [1, vn-cro].

EMVCo MPM foundation [6]:

Payload format: TLV (Tag-Length-Value) plain-text string
Integrity: CRC-16/CCITT-FALSE appended as field 63
Static and dynamic QR variants supported
Underlying symbology: qr-code
Currency code: 704 (VND)

Specification compliance [2]:

VietQR is described in libraries as complying with the EMVCo MPM specification v1.1 (and later: one PHP library specifically cites EMVCo 1.5.2) [7]
NAPAS publishes the VietQR format defining the merchant-account-information template structure for Vietnamese banks

Modes VN:

Merchant-presented QR (static) — printed sticker at the merchant
Merchant-presented QR (dynamic) — POS terminal generates per-transaction QR with amount
Consumer-presented QR — customer's app displays QR for merchant POS to scan
VietQRCash — ATM-presented QR for cardless cash withdrawal

Settlement VN:

Routes through NAPAS 247 rail
Real-time, 24/7/365
Sub-10-second processing
500 M VND per transaction limit (~USD 20 K)

Bank account structure VN:

Bank Code (3 digits) + Account Number (variable length)

Use cases

VietQR has become the dominant retail payment surface in Vietnam alongside the country's competitive e-wallet ecosystem VN:

Retail point of sale — universal merchant acceptance across modern retail, convenience stores, and small vendors. Pre-printed VietQR per merchant is ubiquitous.
MoMo / ZaloPay / VNPay / ShopeePay / ViettelPay e-wallet payments — these dominant Vietnamese e-wallets accept VietQR; MoMo in particular is the leading e-wallet in Vietnam.
Bank-to-bank P2P transfers — VietQR with the recipient's account encoded; transfer initiates instantly via NAPAS 247.
VietQRCash ATM withdrawal — cardless cash via QR-scan at the ATM, confirm in mobile banking app, receive cash. 60 %+ of Vietnam's ATMs support this VN.
E-commerce checkout — dynamic VietQR generated server-side per cart.
Bill payments and government services — utility, telecom, insurance, tax payments via VietQR.
Cross-border tourism — VietQR Global active with China (December 2025), MoU with India (UPI link, October 2024 onwards).

Scale VN:

9.56 billion transactions (2024) across NAPAS network
+30 % volume growth (vs 2023)
+14.4 % value growth
+106.7 % QR payment growth specifically
+84.8 % QR payment value growth
60 % of Vietnamese population uses QR regularly
50+ banks participating
60 %+ of ATMs support VietQRCash

Implementations

VietQR has a healthy open-source library ecosystem, particularly in Go and Dart — reflecting Vietnam's active developer community and the openness of the EMVCo MPM TLV format [2, vn-cro].

Encoders / decoders:

Go — thanhtinhpas1/vietqr-parser — EMVCo VietQR parser and builder [8].
Go — sunary/vietqr — Go encoding/decoding for VietQR per NAPAS [9].
Go — ducnpdev/vietqr — Vietnamese VietQR generation library [10].
Dart / Flutter — vanvixi/vietqr.dart — comprehensive Dart ecosystem with vietqr_core (encoding/decoding), vietqr_widget (Flutter UI), vietqr_image (PNG/JPEG export). Supports 18+ Vietnamese banks [11].
PHP — liopay/vietqr (Packagist) — production-ready PHP library for VietQR per EMVCo 1.5.2 [7].

General EMVCo MPM libraries also handle VietQR payloads (since VietQR is EMVCo MPM with Vietnamese merchant-account-information templates).

Production bank apps consuming VietQR VN:

VCB Digibank (Vietcombank)
BIDV SmartBanking (BIDV)
iPay (VietinBank)
F@st Mobile (Techcombank)
MBBank App (MB Bank)

Dominant e-wallets:

MoMo — largest Vietnamese e-wallet
ZaloPay — Zalo messenger ecosystem
VNPay
ShopeePay
ViettelPay — telecom-backed

Comparison

vs. ASEAN EMVCo MPM family (duitnow-qr, promptpay-qr, qris, sgqr) — Same technical family; same central-bank-affiliated operator pattern; same 2018–2021 launch era. VietQR launched a bit later than its peers (2021 vs 2017–2019 for the others), and is following the same playbook: domestic adoption first, ASEAN cross-border integration second. The 2025 China cross-border link puts VietQR ahead of some peers in non-ASEAN connectivity [vn-cro, sg-cro, my-cro, th-cro, id-cro].

vs. upi-qr (India) — Different wire format (UPI's upi://pay?... deep link vs VietQR's EMVCo TLV). The October 2024 UPI ↔ NAPAS MoU represents the political-level commitment to bridge the two formats at the network boundary [in-cro, vn-cro].

vs. alipay-qr / wechat-pay-qr (China) — The December 2025 cross-border link enables direct interop: Chinese tourists' Alipay/WeChat apps now scan VietQR Global. This is the bilateral wallet-to-rail bridge model in action [cn-cro, vn-cro].

vs. dominant Vietnamese e-wallets (MoMo, ZaloPay) — Complementary. The e-wallets historically had their own QR formats; VietQR has progressively unified the merchant-side QR even as the consumer-side wallet diversity remains (MoMo, ZaloPay, etc. all scan the same VietQR). This is the classic unified-merchant-QR / multi-consumer-app pattern shared with sgqr and duitnow-qr VN.

Fun facts

+106.7 % YoY QR payment volume growth in 2024 VN — Vietnam achieved one of the steepest QR-payment adoption curves recorded, comparable to early-Pix Brazil and early-DuitNow Malaysia. The combination of a young population, high smartphone penetration, and active e-wallet competition created perfect conditions.

VietQRCash — cardless ATM withdrawal via QR scan — is one of the more product-novel features in the national QR space VN. Customer opens their banking app, scans the QR on the ATM screen, confirms amount, takes the cash. No card needed. 60 %+ of Vietnam's ATMs support this. Other countries have implemented similar features (PromptPay-equivalent in Thailand, some Korean banks), but Vietnam was particularly early to scale.

China–Vietnam cross-border QR launched December 2, 2025 [vn-cro, 5] — Chinese tourists in Vietnam can scan VietQR Global with Alipay and WeChat Pay. Given Vietnam's high inbound tourism from China, this is one of the most consequential bilateral QR links in the region by transaction-volume potential. The Vietnamese-in-China reverse direction follows in early 2026.

MoMo is the dominant Vietnamese e-wallet but doesn't have a country in its name VN — distinctive in a regional landscape full of country-branded standards (VietQR, DuitNow, PromptPay, QRIS, etc.). MoMo is a brand that grew into ubiquity rather than being a state-sanctioned national flag.

The NAPAS 247 rail underneath VietQR settles in sub-10 seconds 24/7/365 VN — Vietnam's instant payment infrastructure was built recent enough to skip the legacy-batch-clearing stage entirely. Compare with eurozone SEPA Instant (mandatory only as of 2025) or US FedNow (launched July 2023 but still ramping) — Vietnam has had instant payment as the default since 2017.

Status

Active and explosively growing. Most recent metrics VN:

9.56 billion transactions (2024) — NAPAS network total
+30 % volume / +14.4 % value YoY
+106.7 % QR volume / +84.8 % QR value YoY
60 % of Vietnamese population uses QR regularly
50+ banks in VietQR
60 %+ of ATMs support VietQRCash

Cross-border [vn-cro, 5]:

China: live December 2, 2025 (Chinese tourists into Vietnam; Vietnamese in China early 2026)
India: UPI ↔ NAPAS MoU signed October 2024

Strategic context VN:

NAPAS continues to consolidate VietQR adoption (target: all 51 banks in network)
Cross-border QR expansion remains a priority
ISO 20022 messaging implementation underway
Vibrant e-wallet competition (MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay, ShopeePay, ViettelPay) keeps the consumer-side dynamic

No deprecation planned. VietQR is Vietnam's strategic national QR infrastructure with a clear scaling roadmap.

Sources

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

KH — KH-cambodia.md
LA — LA-laos.md
VN — VN-vietnam.md