SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free today launched popular Vietnamese e-Wallet payment services Sacombank Pay and Liên Việt 24h for the first time into Korean duty free.
In Vietnam, the rate of using electronic wallets, which deploy QR codes, is about 21% – as common as credit card usage among young people, Lotte Duty Free noted.
From today, Vietnamese tourists visiting Korea can purchase mobile phones at all Lotte Duty Free stores without a separate currency exchange process.
Sacombank Pay is a popular platform with 4 million Vietnamese members while Liên Việt 24h has 3 million. By connecting to each application, Vietnamese shoppers can create a BC card QR code that can be used in Korea and then scan it to make payment. The biggest advantage is that there is no overseas payment fee incurred when using a card abroad.
The Vietnamese site of Lotte Online Duty Free, which has been operating since last August, is preparing to use e-wallet payment services in the first half of 2021, and plans to expand cooperation with local banks in Vietnam.
Lee Jung-min, head of the online platform business division of Lotte Duty Free, said, “We plan to pre-emptively introduce new payment services that can attract Southeast Asian customers such as Vietnamese and provide various benefits.”
2019 saw a +21% rise in Vietnamese visitors to South Korea to 553,731, a 3.2% share of total arrivals. That ranked Vietnam the sixth-biggest tourism generator to the Republic. Source: Korea Tourism Organization (click on charts to expand)Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Vietnamese visitors to South Korea had been showing a sharply increasing upward trend every year. According to statistics from Korea Tourism Organization, the number of Vietnamese tourists visiting the Republic from 2016 to the end of 2019 increased on average by about +30% per year. Almost 554,000 Vietnamese arrivals were recorded in 2019.
As reported, Lotte Duty Free is building a strong presence in Vietnam’s travel retail market. This month it signed a contract to operate a downtown duty free shop in Hanoi with Vietnam’s powerful IPP Group. It also has stores at Da Nang International Airport (opened May 2017), Cam Ranh International Airport (June 2018) and Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport (July 2019), and aims to open downtown shops in Da Nang and Hanoi next year.
