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In July, 2023, according to information from KED Global Edition, Kakao Pay announced that it will open ATMs in countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Japan to help Korean tourists to these countries local currency can be withdrawn without having to go through any other means of money transfer.

What is that clear information and is that the signal for the development of cross border transactions between South Korea and Vietnam? Let’s find out with FinFan in this article.

Kakao Pay launches ATM service in Vietnam.

South Korea’s Kakao Pay Corp. in July, 2023 said it started an overseas withdrawal service at automatic teller machines (ATM) in partnership with Global Loyalty Network (GLN), an overseas payment platform under Hana Bank, to ease getting cash overseas.

Available in Japan, Vietnam and Laos, the service allows users to withdraw the national currency of each of the three countries with just a mobile phone that has the KakaoTalk or Kakao Pay app installed.

In Vietnam, customers can go to Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, aka BIDV to withdraw cash.

The minimum withdrawal is 100,000 dong ($4.21) in Vietnam. The withdrawal limit is 1 million won ($767) at a time and up to 5 million won per month.

Kakao Pay said that though ATM withdrawal devices and foreign brands incur fees, it charges no overseas use fees to offer a cheaper rate than a conventional card withdrawal.

Can cross border transactions between South Korea and Vietnam have a chance to develop after this event?

Trade relations between Korea and Vietnam

Korea currently ranks first in terms of direct investment in Vietnam; second on development cooperation (ODA), labor and tourism; and third on commercial cooperation.

In the opposite direction, Vietnam is also Korea's largest economic partner in ASEAN, accounting for 30% of investment and 50% of total trade turnover between Korea and ASEAN.

This shows that the relationship between Vietnam and Korea has developed effectively and substantively, bringing practical and concrete benefits to the people and businesses of the two countries. Korea is currently one of the most dynamic and fastest growing partners of Vietnam since the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Money transfer relationship between South Korea and Vietnam

In the article How to make foreign Remittances from South Korea to Vietnam? we already know the ways of remittance from South Korea to Vietnam including via MoneyGram, by post or courier service, and finally via money transfer service online Remitly.

According to some statistics collected by the Market Research team of FinFan, the remittance relationship between South Korea and Vietnam has been steadily increasing over the years through the following main sources:

B2C Section

• Remittance from export labors in South Korea to relatives in Vietnam with an average annual increase of 10-15% from 2017 to 2023, and the projected figure for 2024 is expected to reach 292 million USD (except for the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic).
• Expense of data and sim for Korean tourists coming to Vietnam with average annual increase of around 30% from 2017 to 2023 (except for the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic).
• Expense of booking accommodation services of Korean tourists to Vietnam with average annual increase of around 33.5% from 2017 to 2023 (except for the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic).

=> Therefore, FinFan has made continuous efforts to upgrade its technology to best integrate with international cross-border remittance partners, e-wallets, and banks in Vietnam to launch and operate new products and services, which are:

. Remittance directly to e-wallet accounts of reciepients through ewallet aggregator product

. Airtime top-up and bill payments for OTA

B2B Section

• The volume of remittances from the export of goods from Vietnam to South Korea has also seen a strong annual increase of 10-15% (except for the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic), reaching nearly 26 billion USD in 2023. Among these, the e-commerce sector accounted for 1%, reaching approximately 260 million USD in 2023.

=> Therefore, FinFan has made continuous efforts to upgrade its technology to best integrate with international cross-border remittance partners, e-wallets, and banks in Vietnam to launch and operate new products and services, which are:

. Virtual cards for OTA

. Virtual cards for e-commerce

Can cross border remittance from South Korea to Vietnam have a chance to develop after KaKao Pay’s event?

After the event of KaKao Pay in Vietnam, the diplomatic relationship and commercial cooperation between Vietnam and Korea has been very good as mentioned above.

Moreover, we have many more options from offline to online to be able to send money from Korea to Vietnam.

Now, the presence of these ATMs in Vietnam encourages Koreans in Vietnam or Korean tourists to spend more money, because they have found a no-fee exchange option from KaKao Pay. Moreover, this move also marks a very new combination of banking services and overseas e-wallets.

Just like the cooperation between FinFan, some of our domestic partners like Zalo Pay, MoMo, VNPay and some abroad partners like Remitly, Paysend, etc to bring to the customers the best way to transfer money to Vietnam "Faster - Safer - More Cost-effective".

This article was curated and authored by FinFan's market research and development team, alongside our marketing department.

About FinFan

FinFan is a cross-border embedded financial services company that focuses on mass disbursement, fund collection, card processing, IBAN, and digital APMs solutions, which can provide valuable input and integration on and for the same.

FinFan is already integrated with almost the world's well-known MTOs, PSPs, switch, and core fintech platforms such as Money Gram, Thunes, Qiwi, Remitly, World Remit, Bancore, PaySend, Terrapay, Ria Money Transfer (Euronet), Dlocal, Ripple, TripleA, FoMo Pay, Wings, etc.

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