Vietnam's Viettel Sets up Subsidiary to Drive Digital Services Business

Vietnam's leading telecommunications company, Viettel, is setting up its eighth subsidiary company - the Viettel Digital Services Corporation. This new business is tasked with developing strategies and providing solutions to create a digital society.

"Viettel Digital Services Corporation or VDS will focus on developing strategies in some of the country's main industries including the digital financial sector, data services sector, credit, insurance, advertising and e-commerce sectors. We want VDS to transform Viettel from a traditional telecoms company into a digital services provider, while playing a key role in the construction of Vietnam's digital economy," said La Dang Dzung, acting chairman cum general director of Viettel Group.

One of the main goals of VDS is to fully develop Mobile Money to allow all mobile users to transfer and receive money and make payments via their mobile accounts wherever they are.

This will remove the physical barriers to provide safe and simple digital financial services to people in rural and remote areas who have limited access to traditional financial services. According to the chairman, this will also be the beginning of the digital revolution in the country.

"Such digital financial infrastructure and digital trading will not only connect people across the country, we will also cooperate with companies and the start-up community to create a cashless society. This will, in time, become the foundation of Vietnam's national payment and financial infrastructure," said La.

VDS targets to have 26 million subscribers within its ecosystem and establish 600,000 payment service points by 2025.

Developing a digital society is Viettel's latest project to help Vietnam keep up in the global technology race. Over the last three decades, the telecom company has built a telecommunications network covering most of the country's population. It has also entered other industries including information technology services, network security, and digital services.