Today (Monday Apr 27, 2009 if you are curious lol), Nganluong.vn, Vietnamese Paypal, was officially launched, allows Vietnamese users to purchase from eBay without a Paypal account required. Nganluong.vn, together with Chodientu.vn belong to PeaceSoft Solution, a company invested by IDGVV and SoftBank China & India Holdings. Chodientu.vn is the biggest e-commerce site in Vietnam & the official partner of eBay here. And I’m sure their targets for Nganluong as well as Chodientu are set much higher than that.

As you already know, online payment is always considered as one of the biggest obstacles for e-commerce in Vietnam together with users’ consciousness and legal corridors. I haven’t tried it yet ços my stupid account at Vietnam is still locked up, but IMHO, the launch of Nganluong.vn has definitely lit up new hope about a future of being able to buy everything online Most of major e-commerce websites in the world still block trading from Vietnam (Am I too optimistic or too pessimistic??)

Some facts about Nganluong.vn and Chodientu-eBay:

- Nganluong.vn won’t cost you anything to use Nganluong.vn to buy things, but will cost sellers 1.000 VND + 1% total transaction value.

- After 4 months of piloting, Nganluong.vn now has 50,000 online payment accounts. Don’t know how many accounts are active and how many accounts they target after 1 year

- And ofcourse Nganluong.vn is not for eBay or Chodientu only, but PeaceSoft is willing to integrate Nganluong into any e-commerce website totally free of charge. Well from this point of view, can Nganluong.vn be seen as a competitor of other online payment company in Vietnam like VinaPay (another IDGVV’s porfolio), Paynet, Mobivi, OnePay, Payoo, etc.??? Actually I don’t know much about this competition things so anyone could please explain for me?

- Chodientu-eBay also partners with Vietnam Post & Telecom Group which allows users to debit money into their accounts at 3000 post offices in Vietnam. I just wonder if we can debit via mobile phones someday.

- Nganluong.vn accepts payments via local banks, including Vietcombank, DongA Commercial Bank, Techombank and Vietnam International Bank (VIB-Bank) and others in the Smartlink network. It also accepts payment via VISA, Master, Amex or JCB cards.

- Nganluong.vn guarantee 100% refund if you don’t recieve exactly the product you order. For more information about this program.

- Ebay’s Gross Merchandise Value from Vietnam’s users grew 82% in 2008.

Some facts about Vietnam Online Payment:

- Online Payment accounts for 3.2% total payment in Vietnam (account transfer, cash, post office transfer), according to Ministry of Industry & Trade.

- The biggest obstacles for Online Payment are: people’s habit of using cash; security & safety during online payment process; legal corridors for this type of payment are still under construction; online payment infrastructure.

- In 2007, JetStar Pacific was one of the first companies to allow customers to book tickets and pay online. And in the past 2 years, JetStar Pacific lost billions VND (more than 500,000 USD) because of risks during payment process.

- A recent survey of Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency on 50 e-commerce websites in Vietnam revealed that: (Frankly I don’t think Vietnam has that much so-called e-commerce websites)
+ 98% has information about products & services provided with prices but only 38% has a clear price structure.
+ 46% doesn’t have any transaction clause.
+ 98% doesn’t provide sufficient information about seller (name, age, phone number, email, business license, etc.) & 96% doesn’t have a policy to resolve contentions.
+ Only 12% publishes a policy to protect personal information.

Tags: Chodientu, E-Banking, E-Commerce, eBay, IDGVV, Nganluong, Online Payment, Paypal, PeaceSoft, Vietnam